Kason à Paris

Update on The Zoe!

2012-01-28T23:37:00.002-08:00

Zoe just turned 4 1/2 and has already planned age 5 through 18. She's not completely clear about how long a year is compared to a day, but back last day when she was a baby, there was a big party with all of her friends and we're all invited, so you have to come so we could all have cake and pink ice cream with all the glitter princesses! Never has a little girl had so much to say, probably because she's learning stuff at the rate of like a million concepts an hour, and she just has to discuss each of them. Especially in the car. Zoe has the distinct honor of being able to claim Waukesha, Wisconsin, the hometown of the great Les Paul, as her birthplace. Even though she comes from the middle of the country, and has heritage in the deserts of the west, she can definitely identify with the beach bum crowd. She likes the beach so much that she's got nick names for each one that we go to. This is a picture of me having just buried her at "the Far Beach" (Cannon Beach). This was the only way I could get her to stay in one place long enough for us to get a decent picture. Zoe has also learned to love sea creatures since we moved to the North West, and actually does a spectacular Sea Lion impersonation. Notice all the super cool purple and orange star fish on the bottom of the rock behind Zoe in the picture below.

A few Christmases back we made one of the biggest mistakes that parents can commit; we bought her a little girl drum set. I've yet to regret this decision, even though it has resulted in a lot of rock and/or roll...at least as much as can be produced by a drum kit with Elmo on the bass drum. Many a times we've put on little concerts with Zoe on her drums and me on the guitar. I love it when she raises the orange drumsticks over her head and bangs them together to count off the tempo of the song, usually getting all the way to seven or eight. Then she starts bangin' the drums and makes up lyrics as she goes. I've exposed little Zoe to a lot of Beatles music, as a matter of fact, her first night home from the hospital she and I walked around

our apartment listening to the Beatles Lullabies CD that I had put together. She is now able to sing most of "

Drive My Car" and "Eight Days a Week". I couldn't be more proud. It makes me really happy when she shouts "Beep Beep, Beep Beep Yeah!" when we're driving about. Maybe she likes "cool" music (as she calls it) because we drag her to countless concerts in the park all summer. Here she is enjoying an Elvis impersonator. She was thrilled that her shirt matched Mr. Presley's car.

It's not just Zoe that has big plans for her future, Sara and I have also made a few goals for her. Sara has been very successful in accomplishing their mutual goal of transforming Zoe into a beautiful princess.

I can't think of many times that we've left the house without Zoe and Sara spending first spending several minutes primping and curling so they can look their very best.

The latest beautifying weapons are her Sunday morning curlers, which she's not afraid to show off with a classic glamour pose. I'm so lucky to have such a great wife to raise such a great daughter.

My big hopes for Zoe's future mostly involve her menu choices. Currently she still demands a very limited cuisine of orange foods including ronis and cheese, cheetos, fishy crackers, corn on the cob and ramen noodles.

I'd like to mold her into a lover of seafood and international cuisine, as I am still the only one in the household (beside the cat) that ventures into these gastronomical genres. Maybe I can build on her love of sea creatures to create a shrimp eater out of her. She still refuses to eat any candy except for the occasional M&M. Weird kid.

I love my little Zoe, she is such a special little person to me. I can't believe that a day will come when we'll sit with her as adults and have great conversations with about religion, politics and child rearing. Until then, we'll try to listen as intently as possible to never-ending stories about castles, weddings, purple bikes and pet ducks

(which usually end up being boiled and eaten for some reason). Zoe couldn't have been much past two when she first sang from the backseat of the car, "Daddeeee-a-leeeee-a-leeeeee-a-leeee", and my heart was officially melted. I'll do anything to keep that little girl safe and happy. Her daddy must be her favorite person always and forever. What a lucky daddy I am!

Update on The Olivia!

2011-09-10T16:08:00.014-07:00

In review of my recent posts I noticed that I've only posted a few pictures of Olivia! My blog is meant to be little sketches about the places we've gone and things we've done, so I try my hardest to not clutter it up with cuteness, but now that the little tyke is walking about, the time has definitely come. In that vein, here's a little featurette on my favorite little eleven month old!

Just like her sister before her, it is very hard to get a picture of Olivia without a giant smile on her face. She has so much practice smiling that she's managed to come up with several different kinds. I'm a big fan of the open-mouthed grin she's modeling in this picture taken at that really awesome park with the zip line and the merry-go-round in Ballard. Unless she's really tired, or truly needs something, Olivia just sits there happy as a clam, thinking of new ways to smile. It's been kinda sad to watch her get bigger and more independent. She won't let us hold her with a bottle until she falls asleep anymore, so I'm missing a lot of quality T.V. time with her. At bed time she just wants to be tossed into her crib with a drink. That's alright though, because when we put her in there she smiles, flops around like a beached fish and giggles a bit as she gets comfy. I do the same when I finally go to bed.

As the daddy, I get the great honor of being greeted like a rock star when I walk in the door after work. This has been a great way for me to see Livy's progress in the mobility arena. After rolling to me at 5 months, scooting at 6, crawling like a little beetle from 8-10 months, this week she's finally mastered the frozen-legged walk. Olivia is still in her "taste everything" stage, which is a horrible mixture with walking, as she has now been converted to a high-speed germ detector. By the time I clean the plant dirt out of her mouth and off the floor, she's already toddled her way over to the open dishwasher. We just can't have nice things! I love that whenever she stands up or walks on her own, she has to clap her hands, as was taught to her by her adoring and congratulatory parents. Yeah Olivia!!

Perhaps the leading factor in Livy's cuteness is that her mommy goes to a lot of work to nudge her into the adorable category. I take on the rough task of being the parent in charge of Olivia's hair. I wonder how long it will be until I finally have a medium to work in? Until then, my toughest job is searching the house for the bow of Sara's choosing (nearly always in my suit coat pocket). The consequence of the cuteness may be a few more minutes to get out the door when we've got a place to go, but no matter what the place is, Sara teaches our little girls how dress in a presentable way. It's a good thing they've got such a classy mommy. This is a great example of Olivia dressed to the nines at Snoqualmie Falls last weekend. People can't help but notice Olivia's cuteness and throw some ridiculous noises at her. And what's the first thing they always ask us after their cooing? "Oh my goodness, how old is she?" To which we always respond with the appropriate age, calibrated in months. Next time someone asks me how old I am I think I'll say that I'm 353 months.

Here's The Olivia in the wagon during one of our summer evening walks around the vacant cul-de-sac in front of our house. We hope that some houses finally get built in these fields with nice little kids Zoe and Olivia's age that they can play with. Until then, Sara and I will continue to be their best friends...and maybe afterwards too. I hope it's not very soon that I have to start putting this innocent little girl into time out and reminding her to behave. I love my little Olivia a lot, and I hope she knows that I do. She needs me so bad, and I'm sure I can handle the needs...it's the "wants" that I worry about. We're a happy little family, and though she doesn't contribute a lot in cleanliness or finances, Olivia makes the family happy with those little smiles. Yeah, she loves us too, I can tell when she tries so hard to beat her sister into my arms when I get home from work. There's no better feeling than being on the daddy end of outreached eleven-month old arms.

Hat 'n' Boots

2011-08-25T21:34:00.012-07:00

Sometimes I sit back and count my lucky stars to be able to live in the same metropolitan area that houses the world's largest hat and cowboy boots. It's a cryin' shame that the majority of my friends and co-workers who have lived in western Washington their entire lives aren't even aware that such whoppers of western wardrobe have been one bus ride away for over 57 years.

Our little family moseyed on over to Oxbow Park in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle only a few months after we moved into town. This little trip was absolutely necessary to retain our status as fans of America's favorite comedy, National Lampoon's Vacation. Sara's mom had tipped us off that Hat 'n' Boots is featured in one of the slides during the opening sequence of the movie. Actually I'm not doing this particular slide any justice, it may be the single most important one that flashes by in the opening credits, as it is the one that has "And Introducing Christie Brinkley" written across it. The Hat 'n' Boots have undergone a few changes since they were shown in the movie. These important pieces of our national history were originally constructed in 1954 as giant advertisements at a western-themed gas station. Everyone knows that gas stations must have themes in order to be successful, and I think a western motiff is very appropriate. I'd much prefer giant boots and hats over the more standard service station focus on bacteria and stench. Surprisingly the giant orange hat and glamour boots didn't rustle up sufficient clientele to keep the joint in business, so the station was closed and scheduled for demolition. That's when the City of Seattle came riding over horizon like true fronteir heroes and rescued the legends, moving them down the street to Oxbow Park where they stand today.
I'm not sure why the orange construction barrel and netting were installed underneath the hat. I can only assume that the ne'er-do-well teenagers that live in the area had been messing about below and on the hat, and this netting was a sure fire way to keep them out. Or perhaps the city had to make the under-hat less appealing to the local transients seeking shelter from the rain. And what a glorious shelter that would be! I'm very glad they kept the construction eyesores the exact same color as the giant western eyesores.

Aside from being raised in the semi-rural west, I'm not a person of cowboy heritage, so I'm not sure if wearing such colorful cowboy boots would result in a colorful cowboy pummeling. I'd really like to get a pair...which is exactly what the local bullies would probably tell me to do if I actually wore this style of boot. Beware to all that may visit us up here in Seattle, the "Hat 'n' Boots" have now been added to the required itinerary.

Comes Bob Bob Bobbin' Into My Belly!

2011-08-12T21:03:00.013-07:00

I really like hamburgers a lot. I consider eating burgers one of my sworn civic duties as an American, and I've spent a lot of time in my adult life being patriotic in a culinary way. Our family's favorite burger place is Red Robin, partly because of the gourmetness of the burgers (as measured in dripiness), but mostly because of the bottomlessness of the fries. It's sort of an oxymoron that those fabulous steak fries are called "bottomless" when they truly are the cause of much more bottom...especially after they've been dipped! I know there's about a million other classier places to dine here in suburbia, but I've never met a Red Robin burger I didn't like, so we're kinda hooked. I proudly tout myself as the 21st century Wimpy.

Now, I don't bring all of this up because of my perpetual hamburger hunger, rather, I wanted everyone to know how important it was for us to go the world's first Red Robin before it closed on March 21, 2010. Fortunately, the cradle of burger civilization was just up the road in Eastlake, so no long trek was necessary. Sam's Tavern opened up in 1940 at the far south end of the University District. Sam must have known the direct link between college students and alcohol. He also knew how to sing, and did so in a local Barbershop quartet, as well as behind the counter. He fell in love with the song "When the Red Red Robin" so much that he changed the name of the dive to Sam's Red Robin. The place was bought out and turned into a burger joint in 1969, and eventually became the mother of 450 franchise children. We'd have come to this location more often if we'd known about the great view of Portage Bay out the window! I'm not really sure why the original location closed down, I didn't want to know. I can only assume that it had something to do with red bird droppings.

Our culinary mecca was well worth it when I saw the picture of Red the Robin from back in his college days (below). I'm really glad he cleaned up and got his life back together. I'm also really glad that we moved away from the Red Robin desolation of Wisconsin (we only found one location within driving range from our house) into the land of Red Robin bounty. Thanks for being a shining beacon of hope, Red, I owe you big time! I'm sure I'll eventually pay you back, so long as you continue to fill up the fry basket.

Hangin' with the 27 Club

2011-07-26T21:53:00.021-07:00

Unfortunately, the famous "27 Club" just claimed a new inductee, and it got me to thinking about its seven main members. The 27 Club is a group of musicians who found overwhelming fame early in life, but whose future was cut short due to their death at the age of 27. It may be a result of my odd fascination in the graves of the famous, or it could be a strange coincidence, but I've seen the final resting place of 4 of the 7 main members of the club. Well, one of them is sort of a stretch, but I'm still going to count it. Here's my list:

Jim Morrison - France has national holidays almost weekly over the summer, and during one of them (Saint Somebody's day) my good friend Bruno and I hopped onto line 3 of the world's best subway and headed to nearly the end of the line. Pere Lachaise cemetery is a fascinating place full of fascinating dead people, including the lead singer of The Doors. The stories behind his death and burial are very interesting and worth a few minutes at Wikipedia, or perhaps a few minutes in Paris. Yet another good reason to go back to France.

Jimi Hendrix - Before I said yes to the job offer in Seattle, I considered how awesome it would be to live in the very city that spawned the world's greatest guitarist. Needless to say, there were very few days between our move to Seattle and our pilgrimage to Jimi's final resting place in Renton, Washington. Don't worry, this shoddy paragraph is only a preview of an upcoming post that will have some tacky title like "Jammin' with Jimi", or "Cold as Love". Our Jimi Hendrix grave experience was pretty groovy and you'll hear all the electric details, in full swirling color, once I finally get around to it.

Kurt Cobain - I'd say Kurt Cobain had more influence on post 80's music than any other person. Western Washington is chuck-full of Cobain history, as he was born and raised in Aberdeen, died just south of Seattle on the coast of Lake Washington, and is currently floating about in ash form through the creeks and rivers of Olympia, Washington. Since we've driven through Aberdeen, Olympia and Seattle loads of times over the last two years, I'm considering this 27 Club member as officially visited. One of these days I'll make my way to the house in which he "commit suicide" just so I can say I've been there.

Janis Joplin - Shamefully, I really don't know much about Janis Joplin, except that she died at the age of 27 only 16 days after Jimi Hendrix. Her ashes were scattered from an airplane into the Pacific Ocean, and I've been to the Pacific Ocean, so I'm counting it. It looks like its time to go put a Janis Joplin CD on hold at the library.

My 27 Club grave count will likely stay at four, as I'm not enough of a fan of the remaining members to visit the graves of Brian Jones and Amy Winehouse in England. Sara and I are dreaming of a nice little drive through the South, during which I think it would be cool to stop and see what's left of Robert Johnson in Mississippi. It would be super cool to write a book about famous gravesites. It would be just macabre enough to grab a reader's attention, and historical enough to hook the nerds. Maybe it would end up getting produced into a super famous cable television show, which I would be able to exploit as host in order to get a lot of free trips to the middle of nowhere. At the rate I'm blogging, I could easily get that written by the time I retire.

The American Drum Horse

2011-07-24T01:26:00.008-07:00

After we watched Drummer strut about the Arena, Marlan came up into the stands to ask if we wanted to come take a ride on the cart. We didn't hesitate a moment to clean up our Cheetos mess, fish the dirt out of Olivia's mouth, and head out toward the barns. Now, we had previously learned that the small horses at the show are not to be called ponies, rather, they are miniature horses. Turns out that the owners of these tiny equines are a little touchy about semantics, and I can't blame them because when people refer to me as an accountant I get pretty huffy, too (I'm a miniature actuary darn it!). The reason I bring it up is that watching my little Sara trying to get in that wagon made me wonder if I had married a miniature human. Fortunately, Marlan showed her how to hoist herself up there. If there's anything a horseman must be good at, it's hoisting himself up into things.

Zoe and Sara did four or five laps around the horse trailers behind the barns, and during the last couple times around Marlan handed over the reigns, and my girls got to do some pleasure driving of a world champion pinto. Sara says she was pretty nervous, "but fortunately the horse is a lot smarter than me". The pictures don't really show it, but Zoe was having a ball up there, and tried to mimic the whistle noises that Marlan made to get the horse moving. Marlan's been training horses for decades, and he has a very special way of communicating with them. It took a lot of coaxing to get the two of them off that cart. That was super nice of Marlan to let them take a ride and drive the horse, that's the kind of thing a little girl never forgets (and neither do mommies).

While my girls were out trit-trotting through the parking lot, Olivia and I had a good conversation with Linda, the owner of the horses. We learned all about where Drummer came from and what he was bred for. It was absolutely fascinating, and I can't quit reading about drum horses on all the websites I can find! The way I see it, these horses are pretty much British royalty. The drum horse was originally bred for it's very specific ability to carry the heavy steel drums during royal processions in England, including the yearly Trooping of the Colours, and Royal parades. They have to be strong enough to carry the fully-uniformed rider and the giant drums for long distances. They must also have a very good temperament so as not to be spooked while the drums are being played as loudly as possible. Drum horses must also be very well trained so they can respond to the commands of the rider as he guides the horse through the streets using reigns tied to his feet. He can't use his hands to steer the horse because he's playing the drums!

The Queen's Band of the Guards has but a few drum horses among it's ranks, but you'll notice in all the pictures online that they look just like Drummer and Trooper. In the picture above, the rider of the drum horse is holding up his drumsticks in an "X" as a salute as he passes by the Queen. If you click on the picture, it will enbiggen and you can see the reigns tied to the drummer's feet. Linda's horses are the spittin' image of the drum horse in this picture. I'd never heard of such a neat thing as this...a horse specially bred to play music! I think if I had a pair of English drum horses I would name them John Henry and Keith, after my two favorite British drummers. Linda was telling me that there's a pretty big movement now to bring the thoroughbred drum horse to America. In fact, Drummer and Trooper are officially classified as American Drum horses, as their mum is American and their daddy is British. This was accomplished via a method they refer to as "stud in a box". Let's just say that if those Fed-Ex guys new what was in that box, they probably would have asked for hazard pay.

If I had a pair of American drum horses I would have to name them Don and Dusty after Don Henley and Dusty Hill. Those are some good horse names inspired by some good drummers. Notice I'm not naming either of them Phil! If they were mares, they'd be Meg and Karen. What a great Saturday it turned out to be, getting back in touch with our western roots. There's something really special about being around horses. I truly consider it a spiritual occasion whenever I watch horses, and horsemen, do what they do.

Meeting a World Champion

2011-07-23T23:08:00.011-07:00

Our little family shuffled off our city-slicker coils today by paying a visit to the Big Six Pinto Show of Western Washington. Sara's blood is one quarter horse wrangler (Quarter Horse?), as her mom was raised by professional race horse raisers. It's really cool to think that Diane (Sara's mom) spent a lot of her youth working with, and playing with, these majestic animals. It was that same blood line that led us to Spanaway, Washington this afternoon to drop in on Sara's uncle Marlan, as he showed his World Champion American Drum Horse. I've always been amazed by horses, and this animal was breathtaking. You could tell he was a World Champion at first glance. Needless to say, Sara has grown tired of my constant requests for a horse of our own.

"But Sara," I say, "it will be an inside horse, and I promise I'll braid his tail every day." To which she replies, "Grrrr".

The people at the horse show were all so friendly. They'd let Zoe and Olivia pet the horses and they'd tell us all about what they'd won and how the horses had behaved. Zoe was a big fan of Fernando, the miniature pinto, who had been brave enough to be shown among his standard-sized counterparts. Fernando was just as friendly as his handlers, but nowhere near as kind-hearted as Marlan's horses, Drummer and Trooper. It seemed to me that Drummer acted differently towards the little girls than he did to myself or Marlan. When we first got to the stalls Sara and I were talking to the people there and then I looked over to see Marlan and Zoe petting Drummer. Before I knew it, Marlan had effortlessly hoisted Zoe up on top of the gentle giant, the whole time Zoe giggled like it was the best day of her little life. My daughter has ridden a World Champion horse!

Eventually it was time to get Drummer ready for his big show, so we made our way back up toward the main arena and set Olivia down to graze in the grass while the tractor drug the chain around inside to smooth out the dirt. We watched as the Showmanship class came in and out of the arena, and both Sara and I were very curious where those girls found jeans the exact same color as their sparkly shirts.

We really enjoyed watching Drummer trot around in the arena with three other horses while the judges made their marks. Marlan's cart was the only one with real wagon wheels, probably because it had to be tall enough to fit comfortably on Drummer. We weren't surprised that Drummer won first place. I felt like he was my horse, which is good since Sara still refuses to get me one of my own (I just asked her again).

Woohoo!

2011-07-22T20:52:00.001-07:00

It's my 500th post! I should have some kind of free prize giveaway, but all you're getting is this picture of fireworks, and a cool slug that we found in the Hoh Rain Forest. That should be good enough. Hopefully cyber technology will have advanced far enough by the time I get to the thousandth post that your computer will spit out a celebratory peanut butter cup. Thanks for being my blog friends over the last 500 posts.

Gas Works Park

2011-06-26T06:53:00.004-07:00

As if the Puget Sound didn't make the place wet enough already, Seattle also has a couple of gigantic lakes within its limits. Lake Union is just north of downtown, and is most famous for being the body of water upon which Tom Hanks' floating house became the set of a movie whose title has been quoted on far too many Seattle pajama pant and coffee mug souvenirs. Lake Union went down in local pop culture history when it lent it's name to the South Lake Union Trolley, whose actual inaugural motto was "Come ride the S.L.U.T". I swear I'm not making that up.

There's a big park on the northern bank of Lake Union that is just oozing with Seattle history. I should use the word "ooze" with a little more disgression, seeing how the history of the park has to do with gas and some mysterious process called "gasification", which I can only assume has to do with something very smelly. Aside from the sweet smelling smoke coming out of the lungs of some of the park-going youth, the smell has subsided, and all that's left is the huge factory chunks which have been relabeled as "art" thus being rendered completely safe and ultra attractive.

And speaking of things that are attractive and don't stink, how 'bout my wife, daughter, and the cityscape behind them! Don't worry, I'll eventually post a more sunny version of this same picture, we've been back to the park many times. This is the same view that we enjoyed last 4th of July as we watched the Seattle Family Fireworks, which are shot off of a barge in the middle of Lake Union. When I was a fledling firework fan I was always told that the best show in the country was at Logan Utah's Romney Stadium. Yeah, I was very misinformed. The Seattle fireworks make the Logan fireworks look like a bunch of sparklers on a football field. "But Kason", you say, "the Logan fireworks always feature patriotic songs like Man, I Feel Like A Woman, and You Can't Touch This...I bet the Seattle fireworks don't have that!" You're right, they don't. Which proves my point. I've never seen such an amazing pyro display! We're definitely going again next week. I'll tell you all about it when I catch up with my blog postings. Seeing how this Gas Works Park visit was in October of 2009, it might be a while.

Oh and a few more things I gotta mention about the park. For all you Amazing Race fans, this was the starting line of Season 10. And the giant hill in the middle of the park with the big sun dial on top is actually a bunch of the old factory pieces stacked up and covered with dirt and grass. I'm planning to follow the same landscaping scheme when finishing my yard, which is why I haven't put the garbage on the curb for the last three months.

Trip Trap Trip Trap

2011-05-29T00:10:00.010-07:00

A fierce volkswagen-eating troll has been terrorizing the hills above Lake Union for the last 21 years. From a few rare photos we know that at least one Volkswagen, with California plates, has fallen victim to his monstrous appetite. While walking through the area engaging in some innocent tourism activities, my family has often been attacked by said troll, but each time we have been able to thwart him due to his being a gigantic piece of public art.

Our good friend Donny, told us about the Fremont Troll long before either of us had ever been to Seattle. He hadn't come to Jet City on a troll crusade, rather, he happened upon the beast while touring the city after running the Seattle marathon. A few days before Donny told us his tail of troll tourism we had made the three-hour drive to Wisconsin's Mt. Horeb to visit the legendary trollway (and the National Mustard Museum). We must have still been in some kind of troll trance because I remember thinking, "I must see the giant troll as soon as we roll into town!" And we did. The troll tried to eat me twice, probably because I still had the faint scent of National Mustard on me.

The internet claims that the Fremont troll was born in 1990 due to the city's desire to rid 36th street of ne'er-do-wells, who had apparently began to congregate under the Aurora bridge to do 1990-style criminal activities such as recreating Ninja Turtle moves and listening to Sinead O'Connor. Something had to be done, so the city turned to it's most exemplary citizens, the public artists. The winning idea was to build an eighteen-foot cement troll below the bridge to frighten away the loiterers. This genius idea worked just long enough for the bad guys to take the bus to Bartel's and back with brand new cans of spray paint. Soon thereafter big spotlights were installed, and everything came up roses. Problem solved.

This is exactly what the internet wants you to believe. The real reason that the troll was built was a result of Seattle's horrible blackberry bush infestation. The non-Northwesterner is usually not aware of the great problem Seattlites have trying to rid their city of the wild blackberry bushes that show up from nowhere every summer offering to work for food and wash your windshield. Each year the city of Seattle rents hundreds of goats to lounge about the city eating away the problem (I'm totally serious about this one, http://www.seattlepi.com/default/article/Goats-make-quick-work-of-weeds-1215680.php). The goat population got larger and larger until 1990 when something simply had to be done. The obvious answer was to bring in something to eat the excess goats. As we all do when faced with goat consumption problems, the City Council turned to Scandinavian folk lore, one thing led to another, trip trap trip trap, and now there's a giant troll under the Aurora Bridge.

Here's a troll's eye view (his eye is actually a hub cap) of the Aurora Bridge. Does anyone else think it's strange that the Fremont Troll isn't under the Fremont Bridge? I bet it's because he's in the Fremont neighborhood. I remember the first time we went a'hunting for the troll and spent a long time looking under the wrong bridge.

Our Full-sized Dollhouse

2011-05-28T00:23:00.014-07:00

I've received many requests from both of my loyal blog readers to post some interior pictures of the house that we rented in Lynnwood during our first six months in Washington. As described in realtor lingo, "this suburban cottage is delightfully cosy and full of character". Translation: "This joint's so tiny there's not enough room to blow your nose without going outside." In particular, you couldn't open the dishwasher, oven or fridge in tandem without having a major collision. The "full of character" part was spot on though. There were little nooks and crannies all over the place for us to display our objets d'art, and there were really cool windows in the living room. We've always called it our little dollhouse since it was so tiny and compact. It was the character that made the coziness tolerable...I actually miss that place quite a bit. I also loved how the master bedroom was the entire upstairs (there were no hallway or doors, just our bedroom), and the bathroom had a neat skylight. I was always a little nervous in that bathroom for fear that I would be spied upon by astronaut perverts. You can't tell me there's no such thing as astronaut perverts...remember the diaper driving incident?

By far, the finest feature of our little dollhouse was the great big exposed attic above the Master Bedroom. We were able to store all of our non-displayables up high and out of the way...the only problem was that there was no way to access the space. We had to buy an 8-foot ladder to get up there (that's the green line on the right side of the picture), and we sweat away many evenings trying to haul heavy boxes up the ladder and into the attic. Of course, by "we" I mean "Randy", who we always con into helping us out when moving. Randy is blessed to be about 9 feet tall, so he always ends up putting stuff on high shelves for people. Avoiding having to help people move is the reason that I maintain my pygmy-like height. For this same reason I doubt that I will ever be the owner of a pick-up truck. Although, having a pick 'em up truck would have proved very beneficial when trying to get that 8-foot ladder home. Over our 6 years of marriage, Sara and I have have managed to cram many pieces of furniture into our passenger cars, and the giant ladder was no exception. I got that sucker into Nermal, my Honda Civic, and was still able to shut all her doors and windows. To this day, I continue to tell this story at dinner parties and award ceremonies.

I was sorting through the pictures of our little house, looking for those few photographic gems that could be deemed blogworthy, when I came across this one of the little bathroom downstairs. Check out how cool Zoe's potty poster is! During those dreaded few months of potty training, Sara drew a giant incentive poster of Elmo on Zoe's shoulders and she (Zoe) got to put a sticker somewhere on the page every time she had a successful potty venture. Aside from the creepiness of being observed by a muppet while in the bathroom, this ended up being a great idea thought up and brought to pass by my perfect little wife. I bet none of your kids had a personalized Elmo potty poster! I'm also very proud of my wife for having always decorated our bathrooms with Van Goghs.

Rachael Returns to Pike Place

2011-05-17T17:39:00.006-07:00

It may not mean very much to you out-of-towners, but this picture of the underside of a bronze pig below the Space Needle is quite the rarity. When we found out that Rachael the Pig was going to take a small site seeing tour of Seattle before being replanted on her pedestal at the Pike Place Public Market, we had no choice but to visit her as she visited the Needle. Rachael was at the Space Needle on a Sunday morning in March, so we had to rush down there, snap some pictures with our porky pal, then get back to Puyallup in time for church at 1:30. These are the kinds of extremes one must go to in order to have such a rare photo. Let's just say that it's not likely that Rachael, being a 550 pound bronze cast piggy bank, will ever be so itinerant again, so we couldn't stand to miss out.

Since 1986 Rachael has been hanging out just to the left and underneath the famous Public Market sign at the end of Pike Street in downtown Seattle. Her main function is to collect donations for the market to maintain it's social services function, which she does successfully to the tune of around $7,500 each year. She also serves as a great place to set your kid for a pig jockey photo opportunity. There's usually a line for that picture, especially when the cruise boats are in town. The Public Market that Rachel presides over is a lot of fun. This is where the fish get thrown from one side of the store to the other, and you can buy any type of seafood or produce you could ever imagine. Not only that, but all the craftsmen and florists that line the halls have provided me with many Birthday, Christmas, Mother's Day, Anniversary and Valentine's Day presents over the last year and a half. There was a great episode of Frasier ("Frasier Crane Day") where Niles and Frasier were walking through the market and Niles nearly got hit by a tossed fish. Great stuff. Here's the Zoe standing by Rachael in October of 2009.

A horrible tragedy befell Rachael on February 5th, 2011, when a taxi driver hit the gas instead of the brakes and ran her over. The impact knocked her down and scratched her up really good, which required about a month's worth of repairs. No one really knows if the cab driver survived the crash, but if he did shame should be on him. SHAME! I was so glad to hear that Rachael was to be re-installed to her prior prominence so quickly after her accident. Rachael's bodyguards during her stop at the Space Needle probably thought we were some kind of psycho pigophiles as we posed in front of her for many pictures all the while asking her if she was feeling okay. Zoe only held still for a few minutes while we visited Rachael, and we were lucky to get this picture of her. Look how much she has grown in just a year and a half...like a weed! I wish they had turned Rachael's green truck around so that we could have gotten pictures of her face with the Space Needle in the background. My current profile picture is of all four of us with Rachael, it's nice to have the entire family in one picture.

Emerald City's Famous Needle

2011-05-17T16:02:00.001-07:00

Seattle's Space Needle is far and away the city's most recognizable landmark, and definitely the worst building in the city to step on if you were a barefoot giant. Since my office is located on the Northwest side of the city, I work literally in the shadow of the famed needle, and get a great view of it when I'm in my boss's office...not that I'm ever in there or anything. I also get a big kick out of watching all the tourists taking pictures of the building as I walk to my train station. There weren't many tourists to dodge when I walked to my bus stop in Milwaukee, probably because most people don't photograph cheese and beer, at least not before consuming most of it.

It wasn't until he came to help us move into town that I was told that the 4-year-old version of my father-in-law, Randy, was actually at the Seattle World's Fair of 1962 when the Space Needle was "unveiled". He was one of the 20,000 people per day that took the elevator to the top of the needle and enjoyed the view from what was then the tallest building west of the Mississippi River. The Space Needle, along with the monorail that was built to transport tourists from the World's Fair grounds to the heart of downtown Seattle, were such popular attractions in 1962 that it was one of only a few World's Fairs to actually turn a profit. We now get the priviledge of escorting all our visiting friends and family to the Seattle Center for the requisite picture with the Needle as the background. The International Fountain from not too many posts ago, is also part of the Seattle Center complex that was once the grounds for the 1962 World's Fair.

The design for the Space Needle was a hybrid of the ideas conjoured up by a businessman and an architect. One wanted the building to look like a giant hot air balloon tethered to the ground, and the other wanted to stick to the World's Fair theme of 21st Century innovations by creating a giant flying saucer. The ultimate design was meant to cater to both ideas. It took so long to find and purchase a suitable piece of land for the tower, that the entire thing had to be built in less than a year in order to complete it before the fair started. The Flying Saucer at the top is an observation deck and restraunt. The restraunt does a complete rotation every 43 minutes, providing a complete panoramic view of the area during one dinner setting...or four complete panoramic views if you happen to be a European tourist.

Not to cast a negative shadow on the Great Needle, but there are a few things that I was surprised to find out as I made the transition from tourist to local. The Space Needle is about a kilometer away from the rest of Seattle's downtown (see the picture of the Seattle skyline above). This is why the monorail had to be installed for the World's Fair, the planners wanted to make sure that Fair visitors would spend their money in Seattle's shopping district, and none of them would have been willing to make the trip from the grounds to downtown unless there was a super cool way to get there. Also, it's been a while since the building has been the tallest anything. It's only 184 meters tall, which ranks it as the 9th tallest in the Seattle skyline, compared to the Columbia Center, Seattle's tallest building, which is 1.5 times the height of the needle at 285 meters. The tallest building in the U.S. is the 442 meter Sears Tower (I still refuse to call it the Willis Tower), and that's nearly 2.5 Space Needles tall. I remember watching an episode of Conan O'Brian once where he had an argument about which is better, the Space Needle or Toronto's CN Tower...it's clearly the CN Tower, which is 553 meters tall. You'd have to stack 4 and a half Space Needles to get to the height of the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. Please refer to the handy height chart to the left, which for some reason includes Las Vegas's Stratosphere in the comparison.

It may not be the tallest building out there, but it is still dear to my emerald heart. It's nice to be welcomed to work each day by the Space Needle, and it's a lot of fun to see it from the freeway as you come into the city. Thanks to Zoe, I still struggle to say Space "Needle" instead of Space "Noodle". We have big plans to watch the Space Noodle firework show this coming New Year's Eve from my office. Surely this will not be the last posting with needle pictures. Come to my city and see the giant noodle!

A Quick Note to Mike

2011-03-19T00:53:00.004-07:00

Who's the biggest Back to the Future fan now?

A Run Through the International Fountain

2011-02-27T10:55:00.006-08:00

Randy, Diane and Sara were finally able to convince me to untie the box openers from their hands, and loosen their sweatbands so we could go downtown to see a few sites. We did the standard monorail loop from the Space Needle to my work and back, picture taking all along the way. We didn't let the rain stop us from doing a few laps around, and through, the International Fountain, which is a few hundred yards away from the Space Needle. The whole area around the Needle is known as the Seattle Center, and was established as the grounds for the 1962 World's Fair. Now it's pretty much a huge park with a lot of big ol' pavilions, some wacko arches, a needle, and a Science Fiction / Music museum (much more on that later). Oh and how could I forget to mention that the Seattle Center is also home of the Key Arena, the run down remnants of the once proud Supersonics.

We sure like the International Fountain, it's one of those things you can sit and look at for hours as the water goes every which way, and the music of the month plays. Of course, you have to eventually stop staring because your kid is in the water, and you have to devote the remainder of your daily brain juice allotment to think up a way to keep your car dry during the ride home (Hint: use a $25 Space Needle souvenir T-shirt). Sometimes its not just the kids that run through the fountain, how could you not?

Not only is the International Fountain the city's most awesome water feature (aside from the Puget Sound), it's flow has been deemed holy water due to having been the site of a clue box in the final leg of The Amazing Race Season 3. It was from this hallowed ground that Flo employed her genius tactic of intense whining to sneak her way into first place. Zach better have snatched that $500,000 away from her as soon as they got the check. Yoink!

Shag Car-pet

2011-02-24T21:15:00.005-08:00

I think it's great that this sign welcomes travelers to the Evergreen state, and the only green in the picture is on the sign. Sure enough, Eastern Washington is not the country's prime vacation destination. This is because the settlers of Seattle were wise enough to put up some mountains to retain all the water. I really like state borders that are along rivers because it makes it a lot more of a destination. There's no question when I am officially in Washington because we're going over the Columbia river, but no one could ever pinpoint exactly which lump o' sage brush marks the crossing into Utah. I recently read a book all about how the states got their borders and it was mostly boring, except for a few really exciting parts. If it were up to me, every state would be shaped like the letter that begins their name. That way you'd know exactly which state you're in as you drive through.

Lucy was quite the itinerant cat in 2009. She clocked in about 4,000 miles in the car during the year. Here she is looking around during our move out to Seattle. She doesn't mind the bumping about, its having to wear a seatbelt that really gets her fur to stand on end. Usually she spends the first 30 miles or so sniffing about and barking, but then she just sleeps on through the day. Not very often you can see a cat chin on a blog.

Another Moving Experience

2011-02-24T20:38:00.004-08:00

Just a few days before Randy and Diane were about to kick us out, our little family loaded up the truck and moved to Washington. Finally, my in-laws were able to enjoy a quiet evening and a full fridge, like they used to. By now we've become champion stuff haulers, so there's nothing really exciting to report about this particular move. There was one part where Nathen and I had to cram a huge couch into a tiny hole, but we got it to work somehow. We're lucky that so many neighbors saw the truck and came right over to lend a hand. I swear it had only been a few months since the last time we put all of our stuff in boxes and put them on a truck. Look out Seattle, here we come! Or at least here comes our stuff, ABF hauled it all out there a few days before we made the west coast exodus.

Seattle House Hunt - Day Three

2011-02-18T22:18:00.005-08:00

Having come out conquerer of the great Seattle house battle, I moved on to my next mission which was to convince the Sara that Seattle would be a suitable urban paradise to spend the rest of our lives in. Of course, there was a lot of phone calls and paperwork to do in the morning, but the remainder of Day 3 was spent exploring the Emerald City.
Here's my new workplace, the building on the right, across from the circular Westin Towers. The sun shines down upon it as an omen that this will be a divine place to spend 45 hours per week for the next 38 years. 600 Stewart Street is proud of its status as Seattle's 62nd tallest building, and of being the home of a Starbucks ... just like every other building in the city. The building is pretty much in the center of downtown, which I love, and there's like a million public transportation stops right in front of it, including the monorail (see the tracks in the picture). President Obama has stayed at the Westin Towers a few times since we moved in, and he ate at the McDonalds next door. Classy.

This here is a giant metal penguin in the Pacific Place Mall across the street from my work. I like giant metal penguins. It's made up of a bunch of junk, and its fun to try and identify each piece.

My most convincing evidence to support Seattle's livability was that every so often you come across a real live palm tree. Not that Seattle is a tropical or desert locale or anything, but it was comforting to know that there's not some horrible winter every year that wipes out all vegetation in the area. Eventually we'll muster up the courage to plant a palm tree in our own front yard. Maybe we can sell the coconuts and get rich. I think that's how Bill Gates got his start.

Seattle House Hunt - Day Two

2011-02-15T23:10:00.010-08:00

Our second day of house hunting in Seattle was a complete 180 from the day before. This is a good thing, because after day one, I was fully prepared to continue living in my in-laws' basement for the remainder of my days. The big difference was that we met the Real Estate agent that we had been referred to a few days before we went to Seattle. Kathi's region is Seattle's northern suburbs, so straight up I-5 we went.

Kathi showed us two houses for rent and we knew almost immediately that the one in Lynnwood would be our temporary abode. Sara liked the place because it was yellow. I liked it because it was full of all sorts of zany little nooks and crannies, including a great big open attic that was only accessible via an 8-foot ladder. I had always wanted an 8-foot ladder, and this was my big chance. I gotta have a picture of that attic somewhere, I'll post it when I find it. The place in Lynnwood was super small (the real estate term is "cozy"), but it ended up being the perfect half-way house for us while we sought for a home to buy. It was such a relief to have a rental that we liked. If there's anything I learned in the summer between Milwaukee and Seattle it was the HUGE benefits of knowing how to network. If it weren't for asking "Who do you know that could help us", we'd be living in one of the spider pits on Beacon Hill.

Seattle House Hunt - Day One

2011-02-15T23:06:00.000-08:00

Its taken months and months, but I'm finally to the point of my blog where the pictures posted actually match the view out my window. In early September Sara and I took a little drive Northwest to the Emerald City, which was soon to be our new home. Somehow we tricked our parents into taking care of The Zoe while we were gone, and we had a long weekend just the two of us. Unfortunately we weren't able to enjoy a lot of luxury because we had the daunting task of finding a house to rent in just three days. Ends up Seattle was a lot bigger that we thought, and the houses we had found online were a lot scarier than we were expecting. I was shocked at how misrepresented the rental profiles were on the websites, we had well over twenty places to look into when we got to the Seattle metro area, and in the first day every single one of them were crossed off our list. I kid you not, three of the properties didn't even exist, two were bonafide internet scandals, and the rest were complete dumps in the middle of what seemed like Hilldale after Biff had taken over. I'll never forget the basement in Beacon Hill that actually had a bathtub full of gigantic jungle spiders.

One place merits its very own paragraph. Eric in Bellevue...not good Bellevue, bad Bellevue...seemed like a nice guy over the phone. It wasn't until we visited his house that we discovered he was a psycho. Eric was the spittin' image of Yukon Cornelius, minus the charm, but certainly including the pick axe. Sara, Zoe and I were to live in the upstairs of Yukon's house while he lurked in the basement. This would have been a great arrangement, providing us plenty of privacy, because Yukon had put a very sturdy piece of plywood over the hole where there used to be stairs. Our portion of the house wasn't palatial, but it was far from the worst we'd seen. I mean heck, Yukon even showed us that the fridge could actually hold well over 12 cases of beer. Yukon thought it best we split all utilities in fours, you know, Yukon pays a quarter, I pay a quarter, Sara pays a quarter and Zoe pays the rest. Makes sense. His stories of all the neighborhood cats what had been eaten by all them raccoons certainly didn't sweeten the deal. Very sadly, this was the cream of the internet crop.

Needless to say, we went back to our hotel in SeaTac that night absolutely devastated. There was no way on earth we were ever going to find a house in only two more days. We had just one lead left, a friend of the real estate agent that sold Sara's sister their house. The next morning we went downtown to check out the Space Needle and to do a bit of touristing while we waited for our appointment to meet with Kathi Ogle. Check out how pretty my little Sara is next to the Needle and down by the Sound. I'm sure you'll be seeing plenty more Space Needle pictures over the next many years.

Diane's Cat Cake

2010-12-28T21:31:00.003-08:00

We're pretty proud of the cat cake we made for Diane's birthday. The inspiration was our Lucy, who was on the tail end of her stay with her evil aunt Tinker. Lucy and Diane didn't get along very well, probably because the goop that often drains out of her ears (Lucy's) seemed to find its way onto all of Diane's walls. We didn't include any frosting goops in the cake's ears. Any cat cake must have candles as whiskers. I think this is also a great time to point out how gigantic the veins on Randy's arms have become. Look at those things. It's like the Venice of appendages.

Lunch Brake with Randy (pun intended)

2010-12-27T22:37:00.006-08:00

Our little Zoe very much loves her Grandpa Randy. Here they are enjoying a lunch break together back in September of 2009 (yes, I truly am that far behind in my blog posting). Every time Zoe sees a blue and white semi truck she insists that it's Grandpa's truck, and the only grocery store she ever wants to go to is Grandpa's store. It's a good thing we live in Seattle now, where Albertson's trips are a possibility, or else we'd have to become subsistence farmers. Do any of you know any other two-year-old that loves her lobster shirt as much as our Zoe does? There's something so lovable about multi-legged pinching crustaceans.

St. George Rocks!

2010-12-27T21:54:00.008-08:00

Blogging about St. George in the middle of the winter makes me feel all warm and sweaty inside. While we were enjoying our little jaunt to southern Utah, we took some time to get in touch with our inner mountain goat and did a bit of photographic rock climbing. The red rocks of St. George provide an excellent back drop for a family photo, and I'm so glad to be married to a lady who finds a series of single-toned caves and sees a photo opportunity.

Those same red rocks also provide great toys for two-year-olds. By this I mean that Zoe wouldn't quit climbing on anything she could get her hands on. It was like we had entered a vortex where the law of gravity was reversed for all living creatures less than four feet tall. The smaller rocks were also perfect for throwing and licking...it was a veritable stone nursery for our little Zoe. Here she is fixing to leap from one cliffside to the other like a desert flying squirrel.

I tried to climb as high as I could up the little cranny under which my Sara is posing, but I was too wide to get all the way through. I did, however, find much success in banging my head and elbows on the rocks, so it wasn't a complete bust. We now know where Zoe got her climbing abilities from. Sara was smart enough to stay on the ground. I was amazed at how many ways she was able to prop up the camera just right so that the self-timer feature got all of us in the shot.

A Summer Walk Among My Progenitors

2010-12-27T21:42:00.000-08:00

Yep, it's another graveyard visit for our little family. This time we were on a quest for relatives in the St. George cemetery, most specifically, that of my grandma on my dad's side, who died back in 2001. After a bit of searching we finally found the plot, and had the pleasure of visiting the final resting places of some of my direct relatives who helped to settle Utah's Dixie. I really like the picture of Zoe in the middle of the cemetery with the trademark St. George red hills in the background. Boy was it a hot day...I often wonder why I always end up in St. George in the summertime.

Here's a 5-generation shot with my dad and daughter, along with dad's mom, Erma, and dad's grandpa, Wilford Woodruff. About two months ago my grandpa Rudger passed away. That's his headstone on the right, with the date of death still as blank as can be. How strange it is that I was writing about the St. George cemetary at the same time period that Grandpa Rudger died. I'm so glad that Sara and I went to visit him a year before he passed away. When I finally get to the pictures of Rudger's funeral I'll have plenty more to say, I'm sure.

This is Zoe spending a bit of quality time with the great granmother she never knew. I'm very sad to say that I never really knew her as much as I would have liked either, since my mom's mom died when I was only 11 years old. I wonder if we should have given Zoe the middle name Lilly in her honour. Zoe Lilly is kind of a mouthful.

Here's the headstone marking the grave of Daniel D. McArthur, one of the original settlers of St. George, Utah and the surrounding area. Daniel D. led the second handcart company that entered the Salt Lake Valley, and is generally thought of as the biggest stud among all my forefathers. Do you see any family resemblance? Yep, same classic family scowl. I guess we should be relieved that the scowl survived the passing generations instead of the scraggly beard.

Olivia Ranae Gallery

2010-10-16T22:29:00.006-07:00

Alrighty, it's high time that I post a few pictures of the Olivia. She's a sweet little baby that still doesn't know how to be sad. When she wakes up hungry in the middle of the night she squeaks instead of crying. If it weren't for Sara's ability to hear dust mites during the night, Olivia's wiggles would go unheard, and she'd starve to death. This little video shows how she spends most of her awake time:

Sara took some pictures of my Olivia and I by the window. She's all artistic and she knows that the best time to take a picture is dusk or dawn. Time in the hospital sorta melts into one big red-eyed pool, so I don't remember if this was a.m. or p.m., but Sara was proven correct, because I think this picture is awesome.

Here's our little family magnified to 4. I think we all look pretty good together, and we've decided to keep Olivia around since she fits in pretty well.

Here's one last picture of our newly-promoted Big Sister. Aside from the occasional accidental newborn couch tackles, Zoe is very good at being sweet with the new baby. She's a big fan of holding Olivia and tells everyone that she's a big sister to a little girl named Steve. Yep, Steve. We were hoping that Zoe would ditch the Steve calling when she saw the baby's real name was Olivia, but we were wrong. Thus, a nickname was born with the newborn. Part of me sorta hopes it sticks forever.

Olivia Ranae's Birthday!

2010-10-11T12:24:00.002-07:00

Olivia Ranae was born this morning at 7:56. She's an absolute angel, and I can't stop holding and squishing her. After an action-packed morning she's fast asleep and we check that she's breathing every 5 minutes. We don't do that with our 3-year-old.

Sara's doing as well as she can be, considering she was just disected, and we're all in good spirits. We've got Diane running around the city picking up this and that, all the while Zoe is in the back seat very confused. Eventually things will get back to a new sort of normal, I'm sure. I hope I can remember how to take care of a little Olivia.

The hospital WiFi is being a big jerk and not letting us upload any pictures to anything, so you'll all have to be on stand-by for your first view. You gotta see the baby! You'll all soon find out that she's definitely worth waiting for, she's practically perfect in every way.

Grandpa Rudger - still going strong

2010-10-03T00:27:00.006-07:00

I'm finally on the happy end of a massive work deadline, and there's no nasty actuarial test looming over the horizon, so I think it's time to reclaim my position as ruling overlord of my little blogsite. Hopefully my tens of readers have been able to weather my absence. Somewhere during my month and a half of blog silence, my little wife has metamorphosed from pregnant lady to "bring towels everywhere you go" as she is nine months pregnant. During our weekly trip to Home Depot today, the help asked Sara if she'd like a wheel chair or a glass of water. "No thanks", she replied, "but if you've got an extra epidural lying around, I'd take one of those." Okay so I made that last bit up, but those hardware guys thought for sure they were just a few waddles away from a very wet clean up on aisle 12. Anyhow, moral of the story is, we're about to enter into a new phase of our lives, which as I remember from the first time, includes a lot of late night infomercials, one-armed dinner preparation, and endless swaddling. Not to mention the frequent quandaries of whether or not our lives will ever be normal again. The answer is yes, in about 6 months. The C-section is scheduled for a week from Monday, there's no going back now!

Anyhow, I've been telling the tale of Summer 2009 for like the last 6 months, and we're almost to the exciting final chapter where we move to the Emerald City. But first, I need to finish up our little jaunt down south to Utah's Dixie. We all went to visit my dad's dad quite a few times while we were in St. George, and it was really awesome to get to know Rudger again. He's doing well and had lots of stories about his mission all over the Mid-West. It was interesting to hear how much and how little Chicago has changed since his time there so many decades ago. His stories all confirmed my life-long impression of him as a man of a deep and rich heritage of class and tradition. I'm sure I'd heard many of those stories when I was younger, but I was far too interested in the toy castle in his living room back then. Now I hung onto every word and wasn't in a hurry for him to stop talking. Zoe, however, was ready to go at any time, so our visits were short. My good ol' grandpas are such manly guys. They're excellent role models for me, and have given me great parents who have made all the difference in the world. I wonder if I'll ever measure up. I guess I've got 60 years to work on that.

History Detectives

2010-08-21T00:00:00.007-07:00

Dad was worried that Sara and I wouldn't be intrested in coming along with him to St. George, so he conjured up an adventure to entice us. Back when dad was just a young sapling he spent many evenings working as a clerk at Fenton's Pharmacy in downtown St. George. Whenever he tells us stories of his days working, there the scenery that shows up in my head is from that part at the beginning of Its a Wonderful Life where George Bailey is working in that loony old dude's drug store/ice cream parlour. Hot Dog! I don't remember all the ins and outs of the story, but apparently old man Fenton had a bunch of super old pharmaceutical bottles and devices, including an old timey scale, that were quite the tourist attractions when he had them displayed at the store. Somewhere along the way these items were donated to Dixie College. Our mission was to hunt down these relics and make sure they weren't just shoved into a box somewhere.

At first we thought this would be a tough task, and we were completely prepared to use brass poles to pound our way through a giant "X" on the floor and walk through rat-ridden sewers. Instead we just walked into the Science building and looked at the first display shelf we came across, and there they all were. That's some super sleuthing, says I. The old bottles and beakers were pretty cool, but I was a big fan of the super old Cosmopolitan magazines that were found under several layers of carpet in the house of one of my great aunts. They're probably better off behind glass at Dixie College, instead of eventually finding their way to the Antiques Roadshow.

Our relic hunt was a lot of fun, but I also enjoyed our little jaunt over to Sara's alma mater, the Dixie College Art Department. She was like a rock star over there, man, every teacher knew her and they were all really excited to see where life had left her. We even spent some time talking to Del Parson, one of the most famous of all Mormon artists. He did the famous picture of Jesus to the right, and a bunch of other really popular ones (look 'im up, and see how cool this guy's stuff is). Del was pretty much Sara's mentor while she was at Dixie, and he was very glad to see her. After we spoke to him, another one of her ex-professors, Glen Blakely, pulled her aside and had her take her pick from among loads of super cool pottery he had recently baked. There were so many awesome ceramics there, her teacher had just gone on some sort of kiln spree and I was glad he let us take a few of them home with us. I had no clue what a great little artist I had married. If I were to ever go back to the Math department at BYU they wouldn't even know who I was...I spent most of my time there trying to avoid the professors.

The Truth of the True Thunder

2010-08-19T21:32:00.005-07:00

A lot of the prints at the dino print place were sticky-outy instead of sticky-inny like I imagined they would be. I probably read why they formed that way like 5 times, but I don't remember now. Something about mud and a bunch of time. About half of the footprints were labeled "Eubrontes" so I got to picturing some really cool footprint-lovin' little green critters named Eubrontes that were all over St. George back in the good ol' pre-extinction days. Perhaps they were generally older little beasts and they preferred the warm climate to live out their golden years. In what ended up being one of the strangest coincidances of 2010 (so far) the U-Haul truck we were given to move into our new house had a giant green Eubrontes on it. Crazy! And I'd never even heard of the little guys before that St. George visit.

A little bit of wikipedia-ing tonight has crushed all my visions of Eubrontes grandeur. I discovered that "Eubrontes" is the term for any fossilized footprints from the late Triassic or early Jurassic period, and NOT the critter that made them. Curses, and I had already put Eubrontes on my top five favorite dinosaurs list, not too far from the best dinosaur ever, the mighty Tyrannosaurus. The next picture is Zoe and I being scary in front of a Tyrannosaurus eubrontes shipped in from Mexico. I'd like to see a real Tyrannosaurus skeleton someday. The Tyrannoskull below is just a replica. Like a big moron I've walked right next to two full skeletons in the last few years but didn't spend the few dollars and minutes to go in and check them out. There's one in the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, and another in The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Man, Tyrannosaurs are so flippin' sweet. I'd say one of the best moments of my life was when my parents let me watch Jurassic Park, my first PG-13 movie, and my first DVD...I would have loved to be eatten by one of those guys, could there be a better story to tell in heaven when people ask what did ya' in, as they're bound to do?

A Return to the Desert

2010-08-18T22:18:00.004-07:00

The blood flowing through my veins is a little more red than most peoples' because it contains high quantities of sand from under the hot sun of Utah's Dixie. Way back in the Brigham Young days, my ancestors were sent down to St. George to settle the joint, and there we stayed for generations. Sometimes you just gotta leave Scotland and move to the desert, I guess. I often wonder if I've disappointed my dead relatives by leaving the wilderness they risked their lives to tame. No, I think not, they probably would have moved too if they had the internet and could Google "water" and find out that there's gallons of it goin' for free on the other side of the Sierra Nevadas.

Ends up that I'm not the first animal to creep his way through St. George. Millions of years ago some cool dinosaurs (all dinosaurs are cool) were passing through the city and they left some super awesome footprints in the mud. Not too long ago those footprints were found by a family friend of my dad's, and eventually the site evolved into a big exhibition facility. Dad invited us along for a ride to St. George the week before we moved to Seattle, so we stopped in at the St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site while we were in the neighborhood. Good grief is it hot there, no wonder the dinosaurs didn't stick around.

Happy Birthday Sara!

2010-08-18T19:43:00.004-07:00

According to the Pastry Decoration Act of 1983 all cakes shaped like whales shall have lit candles representing water spewing from the confectionery whale's water hole thingy. This was the month that Sara's hair immaculately shot out bangs. She told me I wasn't allowed to make fun of her short-lived hairstyle on my blog, so I won't...or did I? Happy Birthday my Sara!

A Birthday Execution

2010-08-10T15:31:00.008-07:00

I thought it best to celebrate Sara's 28th birthday by way of a group papier mache penguin execution. The arctic victim was stuffed full of candy and prizes, put into a box, and wrapped up so he couldn't get away. Sara wasn't very excited about beating the poor little guy, but after a minimal amount of coaxing, her mind was changed, and we strung him up on the basketball standard to await his demise. I believe it was Bryson that delivered the fatal blow, and I was very disappointed to see that none of my kin jumped to the floor to pick apart the carcass. The whole point of having a pinata in the first place was to hear the clunking noise of heads colliding while the candy is collected. Fortunately for the penguin, it was a super cold day outside so that he could enjoy his last moments in his native climate. Our little Zoe was very concerned about the penguin's recovery after his injury, she actually asked if he'd be okay. Sadly, he didn't pull through, but we were all grateful for his martyrdom, as it provided us an abundance of Kit Kat bars and parachute guys. Happy Birthday Sara!

Clash of the Titans

2010-07-31T17:31:00.002-07:00

Let me preface this post by saying that I'm not one of those "guys" that makes it a habit to bore the world with cat pictures and stories. I continue to stand by the fact that if I weren't married to a cat fan, my only pet would be the limbless creatures growing in my fridge. However, learning to like Lucy The Cat over the last five years has been an easy thing to do, especially now that I know that she has the potential to be the clawed victor in any feline death match. This was discovered during the two months we resided at my in-laws house, and Lucy (left) was forced to live with her evil aunt Tinkerbell (right).

Tinker and I don't get along so well, she's a Hatfield and I'm a McCoy. The problem is that she's allowed to growl, hiss and scratch, and in order to stay legit with the family all I'm allowed to do is shriek like a little girl and leap away. She might be winning the battles but I'll win the war, in that I won't be going to cat hell. Or should I say, back to cat hell. On the other hand, Lucy's like the Switzerland of cats, she's never hissed or intentionally scratched anyone, and is terrified of leaves and bugs. I was so proud of Lucy the Cat when she took over the roost after we moved in. Every so often we'd hear blood curdling cat screams a few rooms away and Tinker would come running through the house with Lucy nipping at her heels. I had to act like the disciplinarian so Randy wouldn't kick me out of the house, but every time Lucy swiped at Tinker a little scratched up piece of my pride came back to life. Take that you diabolical little she beast!

Ensign Repeak

2010-07-24T00:04:00.005-07:00

In keeping with the theme for the last week of September 2009, "Haul your kin up a mountain", Sara and I played sherpa to my mom and siblings up Ensign Peak. Yes, I know that I'm only a few postings away from a previous Ensign Peak blog, but we just can't get enough of that view! We did make a horrible error though,before our ascent we ate a ginormous pizza at The Pie...not so great planning on my part. The goal was to be at the top by sunset, and dinner beforehand made a lot of sense at the time. We all got to taste the pizza several times that night!

Sometimes blurry pictures look best blurry. This was a period of time that Zoe would rather look at the carcase of a singing purple dinosaur than the front of a camera. Pictures from this phase wherein she's not looking everywhere but forward are a rarity, so the ones above and below had to find their way onto the blog. The hike down the mountain that night marked the genesis of a new Zoe phase, which I like to call the flashlight fetish. We're still waiting for this one to wear off. Also, may I add that Sara is drinking from the water bottle that I won during The Amazing Race on the cruise boat a few years ago. Its a major award!

A Spiel From A Spelunker

2010-07-23T22:26:00.010-07:00

There's no better place to enjoy a beautiful late summer day than within the guts of a mountain. Sara and I recruited my brother, Bryson, and my sister, Staycia, as co-spelunkers and off we went to Mount Timpanogos. It actually ended up being an entire day's event as we had to get to the trailhead by seven o'clock that morning in order to get tickets. I guess we Utahns love a free caving day. We've got a little bit of everything in our state and the wise ones enjoy as many of them as possible. After all, caves will never come and visit you.

The trail up to the cave was pretty fun. Sara's favorite part of the trail was telling Bryson and I over and over again to get away from the edge. We like to live on the edge, oh yeah. Timpanogos is the second tallest peak of the Wasatch Range, so getting nearly to the top isn't something done in a few minutes, but it still isn't a very tough hike. Back when I was a sinewy young mountaineer, my cousin Jeremy and I pretty much ran up the mountainside and got to the top of the 1.5 mile trail in a half hour. We were able to do it so fast because there was no one there to keep us from the edges.

Caves aren't exactly the best medium for photography, this is probably why you rarely see bat tourists. The tour through the cave presented by Ranger Vanessa (I don't remember her name, but I think a cave woman should be called Vanessa) was very well done, and seemed much longer than the tours I'd seen in the past. Here we are posing among the speliothems, always worried that today will be the day the earthquake hits and we all become fossil fuel. There's a reason they call it a cave in, you know. Isn't it fascinating how much time it took to make all the formations? I simply can't fathom thousands of years, it's hard enough for me to picture 5:00 on a Thursday morning when I'm just getting to the office. I'm super glad that Staycia and Bryson came with us, we had a lot of fun, especially when we got to smell the pack rat at the end.

Follow the prophets, but watch where you step

2010-07-18T00:44:00.025-07:00

We Mormons have been asked to follow the prophet. The easiest prophets to follow are the ones that move the least, thus we decided to combine this commandment with our strange fascination of finding the graves of famous dead people. The result was a summer evening checking out the tombstones of as many of the past presidents of our church as possible.

Thanks to our trips to Nauvoo we've seen the grave of Joseph Smith Jr., the Church's first prophet. He's buried between his brother, Hyrum, and his wife, Emma in the same plot of land where his son Joseph Smith III and his mom, Lucy Mack and his dad Joseph Smith Sr. are also buried. There's a long story about the movement of his body after his horrible and untimely death, but I'm pretty certain this is his final resting place. We probably would have got ourselves in the picture as well, but we felt a little out of place there as we weren't sure if we were allowed in the cemetery.

Between State Street and A Street on First Avenue in Salt Lake lies the Church's second president, Brigham Young. This was the first stop in our presidential gravesite evening extravaganza! Its not very often that all of my siblings and I get out to do something, and this ended up being a super fun day. The statue we're surrounding is right at the feet of Brigham's grave, and out of some weird conicidence, the very next day a pair of drunken vandals actually stole the stone book out of his hand. I swear it wasn't us!

Here's Zoe and Emery still fresh with excitement for the grave hunt. I never knew that two little kids could have so much fun looking at fancy rocks for an entire evening. Brother Brigham's grave wasn't anything more than a cement slab with a fence and plaque on it, but I think it's pretty cool that it is only a few plats away from the living quarters of the current prophet. It was cool to look at all the flowers in the little cemetery in downtown Salt Lake, but we had to get moving, there were lots more to see. I've posted all these in prophetic order, so that is why some of the pictures have a bit darker background then others. We were in that cemetery until after dark trying to track all these guys down. Anyhow, John Talyor came next, you know, and here's Emery and Zoe and I hangin' out with him. A lot of the prophets have really cool obelisk headstones, but for some reason all our good pictures have the pointy top parts cut off. Use your imagination.

Here's Wilford Woodruff, another prophet buried in the Salt Lake City Cemetery. I've always felt a close relationship with Wilford, only because my great grandpa's name was Wilford Woodruff. I think that's a good reason. Wilford is my dad's middle name and I think we make fun of him too much about it. Or perhaps not enough. Does anyone think its weird that we had our little kids in the cemetery after dark. You gotta get all macabre with your kids sometimes.

Lorenzo Snow was a no show, as he is too busy being dead in Brigham City. Sara doesn't know about this yet, but we're going to track him down in August when we go on vacation to Utah. Next on the list is Joseph F. Smith, who is buried below the headstone that Zoe spilled her water on (sorry Joseph). His dad was Hyrum Smith who, like I mentioned above, is buried next to his brother Joseph in Nauvoo. The giant obelisk we're sitting beneath is a monument to Hyrum. I think the background on this picture is super pretty.

After Brigham Young, Heber J. Grant was the longest serving church president. He was president through all of the Roaring Twenties, The Great Depression, and World War II. Before he was church president, he worked to improve and develop The Avenues area of Salt Lake City, which is where he still spends most of his time.

It was getting mighty late when we finally found the grave of George Albert Smith. This is a summer night, so it must have been around 10:00. As we were on our way to his neck of the woods the gates of the cemetery were closing. During this picture I was getting a little nervous that we'd have to spend the night there since all the entrances we knew of had been locked shut. We couldn't just stop after all our work! Needless to say, we got outta there.

David O. McKay served as a general authority longer than any other person. He was in the job for 64 years, and that's a super long time. I thought the headstone for the McKay family was pretty cool, as it is nice and tall and easy to find. I was kinda surprised how hard it was to find some of these graves, even with the detailed maps we had found. I guess in a 120,000 plot cemetery it wouldn't be easy to find 11 specific people, but we did it...well, almost.

These Smith guys are easy to find, since they're right next to each other. Joseph Fielding Smith is the son of Joseph F. Smith, and thus the grandson of Hyrum Smith. George Albert Smith is not a direct relative of Joseph Smith, his grandfather was a cousin to Joseph so we had to actually search around for him.

I don't know much about Harold B. Lee, only that he wasn't president for long. I think the look on Zoe's face is pretty cute. This is the look of elation that can only be felt by a child on a prophetic grave quest.We all liked the big chunks of petrified wood on Spencer W. Kimball's headstone. Nice taste Spence! I also liked seeing that the W. is for Woolley. How do you pronounce that? I'm glad that Bryson put in a few minutes holding up the headstone, you know, giving President Kimball a break.

I've been to Whitney, Idaho, does that count as having seen Ezra Taft Benson's grave? Next time I'm in that part of Idaho I'll have to stop by and pay him some respects. The first grave we looked for in the Salt Lake Cemetery was that of Howard W. Hunter. We all looked and looked but couldn't find the guy, he's somewhere way in the back. It took everything in me to leave the cemetery without having seen his grave. We'll definitely be going back to find it in the near future.

The most visited plot in the Salt Lake Cemetery is Gordon B. Hinckley's grave. He was the prophet we kids grew up with, and this was the first time I've seen his final resting place. There were a few old canes left there by visitors, and lots of cars parked all around.

So there you have it, 15 dead modern prophets, and Sara and I have seen the graves of 12 of them. Once we track down the evasive three we'll be sure to post 'em up on the blog. That was a crazy fun Sunday evening activity. If you're ever bored in Salt Lake, you should go and seek the Holy Graves. Let me know if you need a map.

Slide Static

2010-07-16T23:03:00.001-07:00

Zoe loves play grounds like fish love tartar sauce. I don't mind taking her there because its a lot of fun to see what the slide static does to her hair.

How's the View?

2010-07-16T22:31:00.003-07:00

There were helicopters flying around the valley that morning. Helicopters! I have a terrible habit of filming helicopters and taking far too many pictures of them. I don't know what it is about those things that are so intriguing to me, maybe its the hoovering. If you look at the mountains on the far left of the picture above you can see six of them heading westward above the city. I reckon there was some sorta helicopter conference in town.

Up on the hilltop there's a giant rock tower to commemorate the Utah history up there. The memorial kinda reminds me of that scene from one of the final episodes of Little House on the Prairie when Pa builds that giant rock tower that somehow brings his kid back to life. That scene would have been much more powerful if there had been a shark to jump somewhere in the vicinity. Anyhow, we noticed that like 4 of the blocks had the names of cities on them, and outta some crazy coincidence, one of the cities was "Milwaukee". It's kinda hard to read, but that's definitely what the rock says. Strange.

I sure love the view from Ensign Peak. I like to see State Street and Redwood Road as it gets dark and all the tail lights start showing up and melting together like a big red lava flow. Any of my die hard blog fans (both of you) know of my love for state capital buildings, and Utah's is a super nice one. There's something really special about having your own beautiful place to share with your girl. I wonder if there's anyone else out there that has designated this very location as make-out hill? If so, get away! It's mine.

From Park to Peak

2010-07-11T17:53:00.007-07:00

Many summer nights have seen Sara and I up on the hill above the Utah capital building looking out at the view of the valley. We'd go up there and plan out our lives while the mountains turned purple and the sun set just a few feet away. It was our make out hill. Actually we didn't do a whole lot of making out up there because we'd always pick up a pizza at The Pie on the way, and notta lotta mackin happens with pizza breath. Up on that hill I proposed to my little bride and subsequently locked my keys in the trunk. Genius.

Right next to our make out hill is the trailhead to Ensign Peak. Sara'd been up there before back in the day, but we'd never gone up together, even though we'd been to the trailhead so many times. Up we went on an early September Saturday morning, and it was absolutely gorgeous up there! We had the whole place all to ourselves and I never wanted to come back down. We took a whole mess o' pictures, but I'll just throw a few of them your way...pictures of views are never as good as the real thing. Unless you're like Claude Lorrain or something, and you're probably not.

The State Fair Freak Show

2010-07-02T23:23:00.005-07:00

Is it morally sound to display living human beings at the same venue where pigs are being judged? I submit that it is not. Fortunately, the major infringement on human rights pictured above is justified by the subtitle on the plywood marquee, "West Indies Cultural Exhibit". If any of my readers are from the West Indies, you should take pride in knowing that your country and culture was well represented at the Utah State Fair. None of us were brave enough to fork out the dollar and actually see the tiny person, mostly because we didn't know what to say to her. Awkward! "So how are things in that box?" "Have you tried the deep fried cole slaw on a stick?"

Here's Mike and I posing in front of the finest in Utah's butter sculptury. I don't recall any butter carvings at the Wisconsin State Fair, there probably weren't any because all the butter in the state has been used to over-fatten the burgers at Culver's. Butter sculpting. Weird. I'd say that if you're going to make a sculpture using only refrigerated food stuffs, a better medium would be meatloaf.

When Mike and I were super geeky pre-pubescants, we went to a Weird Al Yankovic concert at the Utah State Fair Grounds. That night was probably the paramount of my middle school memories, mostly because our moms trusted us enough to just drop us off at the door. That, and we really liked Weird Al. I think it's pretty ironic that we experienced a major turn towards maturity while at a Weird Al Concert. That night we also took a small step towards becoming less bumpkiny Cache County boys, in that we had to spend a few minutes in the depths of the Salt Lake ghetto. We ended up meeting my mom at a 7-11 next door to the fair grounds, and we were completely sure we were going to get mugged and shoved into a Slurpee machine on our way to the gas station. It got even worse when some kid shot off a cap gun while we were walking by his house. Yipes. After our trek through the State Fair last summer, Mike and I went back to the 7-11 to encounter our fears, but it was no use. Once a bumpkin, always a bumpkin.

Blue Ribbon Beef. And Pork. And Goat.

2010-07-01T23:41:00.004-07:00

No offense Utah, but your state fair is not the best state fair. One could miss it, or even be late. Or could they? Fact is, a state fair is fun no matter what, but in comparison to that of Wisconsin, the Utah State Fair only gets 3 out of 5 fried cheesecakes on a stick. I'm guessing this has a lot to do with the immense lack of beer being served per capita. We did enjoy the dancing bear show...at least the few hairs of it that we were able to see over the heads of the crowd. Also, I was a big fan of the upstairs exhibit of legume mosaics made by each of Utah's counties. Oh, and the goats were the happiest little goats in whole wide world. The reason they're so happy is because they know that of all the meat producing animals in the state, they have the least to worry about. Goat meat is really icky compared to the lardy glory that is bovinae and suidae.

Since state fair going is best done in herds, we invited Jennifer, Annie, and my good buddy Mike to come along with us. I'd say we all had a super great time walking about admiring the grown goods of our home state. I love hanging out with Mike. Since High School came to a quick end, we just haven't done much together, I assume that living a thousand miles apart has something to do with it. We've both been pretty busy, too. He just got done graduating from Law School for goodness sake! That's pretty cool. Anyhow, I really like looking at the best pigs and cows in the state. The only real difference between this and a beauty pageant is the actual encouragement to eat. That, and the animals wear much skimpier evening gowns.

Happy Number 3 Annie!

2010-06-30T22:29:00.005-07:00

In honor of our visit to the zoo, we decided to make Annie a baby elephant birthday cake. Everyone knows that of all zoo animals, elephants provide the most cake meat pound-for-pound. Nathen's family and our family are quite the riot when all gathered up, and we all had a great time showering the Annie with pink and glittery presents that night. Zoe was really bad at being the non-unwrapper, reminding me about the misery of not being the birthday girl. I mean birthday boy. Sibling birthdays are pretty much Christmases wherein Santa Clause couldn't fit down the chimney.

Annie's Zoo Birthday

2010-06-28T23:25:00.003-07:00

When Zoe's cousin Annie turned 3, Sara and I took her to Hogle Zoo to visit the Utahn animals. Utah animals are just like other animals, but much more docile. Having grown up in Logan, I only got down to Hogle Zoo once in a little while, but I distinctly remember the lion head drinking fountain. It was cool to share that memory with the Zoe. When I was in fourth grade, I was let out of school for good behaviour and put onto a yellow bus to visit the big city and the zoo therein. Mom and Dad gave me my first camera to take pictures while there, and I thought it was the absolute coolest thing ever. The first picture I ever took was of a great big box turtle at the zoo. Since then, we've taken enough pictures of zoo animals to fill several editions of National Geographic...if the society were to ever stoop low enough to publish many special editions featuring caged African wildlife staring at wagon-mounted toddlers. Annie and Zoe seemed to enjoy the zoo plenty, especially the baby elephant as it walked around its enclosure. Cue the music Mr. Mancini! After our zoo excursion we filled Annie up with sugary slurpee (like we always do) and sent her back home so we could build her a cake. We sure like that Annie!

The emblems of our family

2010-06-20T23:09:00.005-07:00

Sara was commisioned by her aunt to make a family crest to be presented at the family reunion. I am always so impressed by my little wife's artictic finesse. She spent hours studying heraldry so she could most accurately capture what her family holds near and dear. I'd say she hit it right on the head. Every line and color has a meaning, and anyone who knows her family would agree that nothing was incorrect or left out. The crest was embroidered onto a flag, and hung up in the lodge. Pretty cool.

Sara's Grandma Ranae and Granpa Glen are pretty much the best grandparents around. I owe a large debt of gratitude to Sara's Grandpa. When we were just beginning to date Sara and I were up in Idaho visiting, and when I held the car door open for Sara, Glen came over to her and told her that she ought to keep me around. That same trip I figured out that I most certainly did want to stick around, because I'd be gaining such great grandparents by marrying Sara. I gave them my immediate seal of approval when, even though we didn't get to their house until after 10:00 p.m., Ranae still got out the ice cream. Anyone who gives me ice cream late at night forges an unbreakable bond. Since then, I've been adopted as an honorary grandson, with all rights and priviledges bestowed upon me, including make up time at Grandma's fishing pond during the family reunions. My mom's mom died when I was only 12 and dad's mom passed away about 10 years ago. My grandma gap has been very well filled by Grandma Ranae, and I'll never be able to thank her enough for it. After the kids went to bed, Sara and I spent hours talking to Glen and Ranae at the reunion, and their stories taught me a huge lesson. In the sunset of your life you don't look back on the jobs or the money. Instead, you talk about the car rides with the kids, and the great friends from next door. Grandparents spend reunion time observing their own lives as reflected in the surrounding grandkids and great grandkids. Surely getting married and having kids early was a better choice than getting a head start on the CEO trail. I hope I can be more like my grandparents and enjoy those golden years starting now. Thanks for everything Grandpa and Grandma Glen and Ranae!

My nature's preittier than your nature.

2010-06-20T15:34:00.004-07:00

So nature is really pretty, and there sure is a lot of it out there. I grew up in Cache Valley, Utah, where all the locals are 100% convinced that they've homesteaded on the world's best looking land. Now that I've been around the country quite a bit, I've been humbled enough to shun my haughty upbringing. Ends up that there are even prettier places out there! As you can tell from these pictures, one of those places is rural Idaho (rural Idaho represents about 98% of the state). During the annual reunion up at Little Piney I'm always in the thick of actuarial exam study time, so I've gotten into the habit of waking up early and hitting the books before everyone else is around to distract me. During this particular trip, I watched the sun come up over all the trees on the mountainside and it was so pretty I almost wanted to become a perma-camper. I recovered from this mind set quickly when I remembered that I'd have to trade my plumbing and my microwave in order to make this happen. I think a few times a year is enough to fill my nature canteen. Besides, I live in western Washington now, where if you stand still long enough outside you find that there's green slimy nature growing on your skin, so I've got plenty to look at.

Zoe and her cousin/best friend in the whole wide world, Annie, spent a lot of their outdoors time throwing stuff into the river. Sara's uncle Dennis brought a really cool PVC pipe rocket launcher and Zoe couldn't stop launching stuff up into the air. Grandma provided the annual fishing pond (thanks Grandma) and all the kids ate more than their weight of cookies and chips. Add the slide and baseball diamond to the mix, and you've got a great big steaming hot pot of summertime fun. Looking at these pictures make me long for the warm summer sun. Here in Puyallup we haven't seen a sunny day in about two weeks. I guess that's what we signed up for. Hey Mr. Golden Sun, please shine down on me!

Lodge Cooked Sliders

2010-06-18T22:49:00.006-07:00

When Summer nights are starting to get a little colder than you want them to be, and the mountain lions start looking for food at lower elevations, its time to go camping in the woods! I'm not really sure you can call the annual family reunion camping, seeing how we stay in the gigantic lodge and eat all sorts of home cooked (lodge cooked) meals. Actually one year we did sleep in a tent during the reunion and it was delightful...when the sun finally came up! Sara's extended family on her mom's side are very rugged and tough outdoorsmen. People on my side of the family are better described as squishy and reclined basement dwellers. If you really think about it though, the latter lifestyle is preferable as mountain lions rarely infest a basement, but if they did, imagine how happy they'd be when they discovered the squishy people reclined down there. Despite our differences, Sara and I both absolutely love the family renion, probably because her family are the nicest folks to ever reunite. Beyond eating, there are other generators of family fun at Little Piney Campground such as the ginormo slide that goes from the lodge all the way down to the swing set and baseball diamond. What is that, like half a mile of pure terror? Those stairs are a new luxory to sliders, we used to have to climb all the way back up the mountain using our bare hands. Zoe thought it was the neatest thing since Elmo met Big Bird. We must have hiked up those stairs 20 times, that comes to 10 total miles. A few years back, on my first time down the chute of death, I made the horrible error of putting my shod feet out. The rubber on my shoes stopped, but I kept going...over the slide side and down the hill. Like the true man I am, I walked it off. Since then I know, as taught by Sara's 6-year-old cousins, that one must use the supplied carpet samples when sliding and keep the feet safely tucked away.

2010-06-13T22:31:00.001-07:00

Sound advice found in a Heber City burger joint.

The Housing Battle in Seattle

2010-06-12T22:57:00.014-07:00

Have any of you ever had only two days in a foreign state to find a suitable dwelling? Its not a whole lot of fun because in the back of your mind you wonder if the best thing you'll be able to find is that nasty basement rental on Beacon Hill with the spider-infested bathroom and the police on speed dial. We had spent hours and hours on the internet before our trip making appointments with would-be landlords to check out their offerings. It ends up that this is not the best way to find a dwelling because internet ads are often less than truthful. Some cyber landlords were very confident that we'd like their properties, so much so that they offered us the keys to the house sight unseen as soon as the deposit money and first month's rent was wired to their off-shore accounts. We didn't take the bait.

The first day in hot pursuit of a Seattle domicile was just awful. We must have been through over ten houses, each of them scarier than the ones before them. My personal favorite among the blighted was the upstairs floor offered to us by Eric the Red. He actually said to us, "I hope you guys don't have any pets because there's been raccoons eattin' cats 'round here." His only redeeming quality was his skills in math, which he displayed by dividing the utility bills into fourths, "That's one fourth for me and one fourth for the three of you". I guess the raccoons aren't willing to pay their share, even though Zoe is (or should be). Needless to say, we were very unhappy in the hotel that night.

Everything turned around the next day when we met up with a real estate agent reference from the guy that helped Nathen and Jennifer find their house. Within one day she'd found us a cute little brand new yellow house to rent up in Lynnwood. I guess sometimes you have to turn to the professionals. Thanks to her help, we were able to do a little bit of site seeing that last day in Seattle, and we snapped a few vintage Space Needle tourist pictures. This was before it had been dubbed the Space Noodle by our creative little daughter. On the other side of the monorail line we found my new work building. She's the taller one on the right. Surely we'll have a better picture for you in the future. The cylinder towers across the street from my office are the Westin hotel. Sometimes the less private hotel goers give my coworkers and I quite the show as we go to the printers and back. Strange how only the unattractive get dressed on their balconies.

Fishing with Nathen

2010-06-09T23:34:00.005-07:00

Our brother-in-law Nathen is a super outdoor woodsman sort of guy. If there were ever a freshly eaten grandmother in the forest somewhere, he'd be the kinda guy that wouldn't even think twice before volunteering to cut her out of the big bad wolf. Back in August he invited us to go "up the canyon" with him to do some fishing. For those of you who didn't grow up in a mountainous region, "going up the canyon" is a local term, which loosely interpreted means to pile into a truck, go on a two hour drive through windy rock-ridden roads, and get really dirty and sweaty. The Nathen fishing trip was no exception. I learned that going up the canyon with your wife is a lot more fun than it ever was with the Boy Scouts. Here's why:Sara is a closet camper. There's no way she'll agree with me, but I think she really likes to go out of doors and enjoy the wilderness, regardless of her frequent tirades to the contrary. If it weren't for the dirt, wild animals, lack of toilet paper, and e-coli, I think she'd be a mountain man woman. Observe the picture above. That's not an "eeeew" face, it's an "I'm so proud of myself" face. In the middle of a long silent spell during our drive to the lake Sara exclaimed, "Are we there yet, I really want to kill a fish". This is the girl I married. Here's a picture of what Nathen did the entire time we were extracting fish from the lake. None of us were any good at tying the line, casting, hook removal, or sharing, so he ended up spending all three hours going from one hopeless fishing novice to the next fixing our mistakes. The less queasy among us (me) even got a fish gutting lesson from Nathen, which ended up being really cool. I had no idea that fish came pre-equipped with handles for facilitating disembowelment. Nathen's a great guy. I wonder why he hasn't invited us back to the lake? It probably has something to do with our moving to Seattle.
We each succeeded in fish catching at least once. The one I got was a funky looking albino freak, so I was forced to return it to the white demons that spawned it. Nathen instructed me to throw it back, which I did by way of a very manly overhanded football pitch. I was then ridiculed by my family members for not knowing that "throw it back" is fishing lingo for "gently release into the water". I'm not sorry for the maltreatment of the albino mutant, he was probably one of those weird roller-coaster loving fish anyway and I provided for him the thrill of his aquatic life. That's the kind of nature lover that I am.

Bridging the Transcontinental Gap

2010-06-09T22:15:00.001-07:00

I've got a few more pictures of the Golden Spike National Monument in my holster so I figured I'd pull 'em out, and throw them into the massive sea of internet imagery. This is Sara and the Zoe and I in front of one of the cool new old trains. One of these days I'll find myself at the monument again when they actually fire one of these babies up and move it up and down the track. I remember that being really cool when I saw it as a Boy Scout.

This first picture here is Zoe and I in front of the original plaque that was put up in 1943 before all the visitor centerage and replicary was installed. I really like how the plaque says it was at this spot that the country was bound together by iron rail. That's pretty cool. Not to ruin the magic, but like I previewed in the prior posting, even though the driving of the golden spike marked the ending of the rail line from Omaha, Nebraska to San Francisco. There was no railroad bridge over the Missouri river until March of 1873. Until then, transcontinental passengers had to hop off the train in Council Bluffs, Iowa, cross the river by boat, and board a new train in Omaha. In 1939 a 56 foot upside down golden spike replica was installed at the 0.0 milepost of the original transcontinental railroad in Council Bluffs. Curse us for not stopping to get a picture with it when we traveled through that area a bazillion times back in the Wisconsin to Utah driving days (I done stole this picture from the world wide web). That's a really cool giant upside down spike.

Like all other Utahns with a speck of class, I was relieved when it was announced that the "Crossroads of the West" design was successfully voted upon as the Utah state quarter. That's waaaaaay better than that dorky snowboard one. What was the motto that went with that one? Something like "Utah: Old Conservatives Trying to Be Extreme". I didn't hate the beehive one though, mostly because I really like honey. Did you hear that the US Mint is starting to put National Parks on the backs of the quarters now? That'll be sort of fun. I think the reasoning behind this is that its the only way that the government can force we spend-happy Americans to actually save money. Honestly, how many of us have a stash of state quarters in our top drawers worth a total of $12.50? I do, and I'm proud of it.

It'll Be a Girl!

2010-05-27T22:33:00.003-07:00

This is a picture of our new little baby, which is still just a small 10 ounce Sara spawn. As you can see from the profile of the face, it will be a female child. The long hair and lip stick gives it away. I guess this gives me the medieval right to lock my wife in the Tower of London and lop her head off. I won't do that though because I'm actually excited that we'll be having a Zoe version 2.0, we know how little girls work, and the potty training phase involves a lot less wall cleaning. I really didn't want to sew all those patches on his Boy Scout sash anyway. Sara seems convinced that I would prefer a boy, but I honestly don't mind. Holding your own little baby is a miraculous little thing no matter what color the blanket is. Our little family is growing just the way I always wanted it to...and so is Sara. The ETA for this little tyke is October 17th, right after pension plan tax season, perfect timing. Wahoo for us!!

Some women are drippin' with diamonds
Some women are drippin' with pearls
But golly gee, look at me, look at what I'm drippin' with
Little girls.

The Ultimate Demise of the Golden Spike

2010-05-14T22:03:00.007-07:00

I'm not really sure if it can be considered torture to drag your child out into the desert and force history upon her, but Sara and I are guilty as charged. I consider it recourse for the horrible things that my father subjected me to during my youth. While the rest of my friends were spending their summers lying about like slugs playing Street Fighter II, I was being paraded through semi-local museums and historical sites learning stuff. Its a wonder I survived. I suppose it was good for me though because now I'm very good at not throwing up in cars, and I know a lot about sagebrush. And speaking of artemisia tridentata, there is an awful lot of it at America's most famous square inch, the site where the Golden Spike was laid to complete the transcontinental railroad. Well...technically it didn't complete the railroad, but more on that later. (Ay! What a cliffhanger!)
We're just not fit to be tied (pun intended), so we took the drive up to the northern coast of the Great Salt Lake to see the spike and learn about trainage of the mid 1800s, once again. My hometown is only like an hour away from Promontory Summit, and I remember going out there every summer to do scout service projects and it was absolutely horrible. I think I'm still sweating and sun burnt from those service projects. But it also taught me to be all respectful about the gigantic effort put forth by my forefathers to tame the wild west. Here's me between the trains sitting at the alleged spot where one of the four tycoons who funded the railroad, ex-California governor Leland Stanford, wopped the ceremonial golden spike into the ceremonial polished laurel tie using his ceremonial silver hammer and his ceremonial tycoon muscles. This is Zoe and I in front of an original replica of the golden spike. Immediately after the ceremonial wopping by Leland Stanford, the golden spike was yanked out and replaced by a regular old iron one. The golden spike was donated to the Stanford Museum in Stanford, California. Hmmm...I wonder why it ended up there. Someday I'll go see that spike. Mark my words. Unfortunately I won't be able to see the polished tie the spike was wopped into because it was burnt in the fires from the 1906 San Fransisco Earthquake. So what is there to see at Promontory Summit? The golden spike is gone, the last tie's gone, the trains are replicas...there's the track, right? Nope. The actual track that was built through the area was dug up in 1942 and used as war materials. I'm glad there are people out there that make replicas of things like this so I can at least pretend to be witnessing history. Even though all the relics are gone, the site's still there, and I bet nobody ever completed a transcontinental railroad in your homestate! Neener neener.

The Great Ski Jumping Conspiracy

2010-05-09T18:04:00.004-07:00

A successful ski jump has never actually been performed by mankind. The jumps you see on TV during the Olympics are actually done by spandex clad actors in front of blue screens. My proof of this is that those ski jumps are crazy tall. I refuse to believe that beautiful people slide down those things on flat sticks, do back flips, and land safely on the ground. Did you know that the green padded part the skiers land on (right behind me) is made up of thousands of tiny blades of 3 inch synthetic grass? Its like astro turf...to the EXTREME!!! And speaking of awesomeness, when we got to the ski jumps they were blasting the song "Freewill" by Rush, and I decided its the best ski jumping song ever. I dare anyone to think of a better one.

How awesome is it that they have a set of slides at the bottom of the jump for the little kids to begin ski jump training while watching their older siblings fly down the hill. If the kids are really lucky they'll be able to witness the life flight helicopter come in to take big brother for an exciting ride. Its great to watch Annie and Zoe play together on the slides. Have any of you other parents noticed that playgrounds have evolved into death traps for toddlers? Honestly, the safety upgrades in every other kid-related item in the world is inversely proportional to those of the modern playground. I don't mean to sound like a curmudgeon here, I loved every sliver I got playing at the Big Toy at Hillcrest Elementary School, but wow, the playgrounds we've taken Zoe to lately are like American Gladiator obstacle courses minus the padding and the giant Q-tips. I guess the next generation will be a very tough bunch.

Wouldn't that be W'ummer?

2010-05-07T23:47:00.006-07:00

Does this sunny scene make any of you Amazing Race enthusiasts reminisce the bygone days of Season 8? "No, Kason, it doesn't because that Season was lousy with a capital Crap". Hey, I didn't think it was that bad, I kinda liked the whole family thing. The problem is that Season 8 is not of the same species as its sister seasons. Its like the Race's girlfriend's roomate, its hard to look away from her, but you know you must because it's just wrong to get involved. But Season 8 does include the Race's stupidest thing ever said, which spewed forth from the Weaver mom's big mouth as they crossed lake Pontchartrain, "This is one of the Great Lakes". Oye. Some people shouldn't be allowed outside of their living rooms.

Wow, that was a long tangent. A long and very important tangent. Anyhow, so check out how cool this action is. These crazy downhill wooden plank sliders continue practicing their extreme trade in the summer by flying into these swimming pools. We watched quite a few of them do it, and it was awesome. Just before the skier hits the water a whole load of bubbles come up to cushion his or her fall. Regular Kasons like myself can give it a try if they're willing to pay a bunch, which I am not. Its definitely worth the trip up there just to watch these guys fly into the water. How cool would it be to tell your friends back in High School that you planned to spend the weekend ski jumping into a swimming pool. Maybe we should get Zoe involved with aquatic skiing so she can be the BWOC, as you can tell from this picture, she is brimming with interest.

It's S'winter at Park City

2010-05-07T22:07:00.006-07:00

We decided that we weren't going to spend our Utah time between jobs lounging about on my in-laws' couch watching TV and eating caramel popcorn. At least not everyday. The convictions of our youth were reconfirmed as we toured the state and discovered that even though it's almost completely covered in nasty desert, Utah's actually a pretty happenin' place. I was out being a missionary in the Dominican Republic when the world came to Utah for the Winter Olympics in 2002, and my friends and family tell me I missed out on a lot of cool stuff. Fortunately, a lot of the coolness is still lingering around at Park City, so we took a little drive through Parley's Canyon to check out the sites. We dragged Sara's sister Jennifer and our adorable little niece Annie along for the ride. One thing I love about Jennifer, Nathen and Annie, is that they are always willing to go out and do stuff with us, like meeting sticker-clad albino bisons. We're still not sure if we were allowed to get inside the bobsled at the Winter Olympics Museum. Judging by the stares we're getting from our fellow tourists behind us, we may have just broken some official Olympics rules and will likely be disqualified from all future commemorative sliding events. Not surprisingly, there weren't a whole lot of people at the museum on a week day afternoon because all the people that love winter sports enough to visit a winter sporting museum are too busy working so they can afford to participate in winter sports. I noticed that there were no exhibits in the museum dedicated to the winter event I'm best at: slipping on the ice while getting out of my car. I got two gold medals and a bronze behind in this event every year while living in Milwaukee. It's the poor man's winter sport.

Memories of Grandpa

2010-05-01T21:55:00.002-07:00

Here I am with my daughter, my mom, my grandpa, and a lamp with deer feet on it. This picture marks the end of a 3-yr era during which I didn't see my little old Grandpa...our paths just never really crossed. As a matter of fact, this was only the second time Sara had even met Grandpa, which is too bad because he's a pillar of a man. So many great memories, all manifest by sounds, smells and sights.

Sounds: I'm not sure how many in my blogdience are St. George goers, but those who are know there is a very specific sound in that city after dark. The bugs in the trees must be the most stressed out little critters in the world because they are constantly screaming. They're probably angry that they don't have air conditioning. After our little 6 hour car ride down south to Grandpa's house we'd open the sliding van door and immediately know we'd gone to the right place because of the bug squeals. Add to that the sound of the water gushing down the gutters, and the hot breeze, and you've got an evening at Grandpa's house.

Smells: Sometime in that 5 year span between boy and man, I went on a week-long pine nut picking trip with my Grandpa and my Uncle Tom's family. I've never been much of a camper (sadly, Uncle Tom did not have a cabin) but I remember having a lot of fun learning how to hunt pine cones. You see, my grandpa was a champion pine nutter. Holy cow, I remember him spending hours talking to my cousin Dwayne and I all about the techniques of getting nuts out of pine cones, and the crazy adventures he'd had out in the woods. Early in the year he'd go out and get the green pine cones directly out of the trees and bring them home to his driveway by the truckload, where he'd let them dry until the nuts would come out with just a little cone raking. Whether it was out in the woods, or sitting on the back porch, the smell of my Grandpa was pine sap. Plus, thanks to the menu during the nut hunting trip, the smell of pork 'n' beans also brings the grandpa memories rushing back.

Sights: Granpa's living room was unmistakable. On the wall was the taxidermied head of some deer-like creature, and a plaque given to him by Dixie College for his years of service as a janitor at the school's gym. The brown carpet, the end tables that were so thick they couldn't have weighed less than half a ton each, and the green tassley couch pillows. He'd always be there watching World War II shows on TV. Man, he spent years fighting during World War II. I've spent a lot of time trying to picture my grandpa as a scout in the Phillipines crawling through the jungle ahead of everyone else trying to stay alive. Then he got shot right next to his heart. That scar is a sight I'll never forget. He spent years in the military, years as a diesel mechanic, years running the dairy farm, years as a loving father and husband. My mom and her 4 brothers look so much like him and have all measured up to the man and woman that raised them. Can we young kids ever measure up? Now the sight of Grandpa is a 17-year widower living in the frozen Logan tundra, with tube socks keeping his ears warm.

He is a true American hero. I'm at such an advantage because some of his warm St. George blood is flowing through my veins. Wow, I've actually got a double dose of St. George inside of me. We went to visit my other Granpa last summer as well, I'm sure you'll hear plenty about that in the near cyber future.

See the Cake of Enormous Girth

2010-05-01T20:58:00.007-07:00

Sara and I really like making cakes. Oh, and we also really like eating cakes. I'm not sure which of these life passions came first. I remember eating some pretty incredible mom-made cakes when I was a wee little dessert destroyer. One year for my birthday she made me a rockin' Ernie and Bert cake that will forever be etched into the fleshy tissues of my heart, and the fatty tissues of my gut. Thanks mom! For Tyler's birthday we built him a pretty cool turtle with the earth on his back cake, as seen in the attached pictures. You'll notice that the pictures were hand selected to most artistically display the 3 standard steps of birthday cakeage - admire, ignite, digest.

We originally limited the M&Ms on the globe to only be placed atop the cities we've actually visited. We later expanded the candied marker requirements to include places that people we know have been to, because we likes our M&Ms. I bet Tyler was proud to be the only M&M representative of the Australian continent. Please note how cool the rainbow cake innards are, that's a secret family recipe that we've only told one person outside the family. That person was the turtle, and look what happened to him!

Did you know that ancient peoples of China, India and North Amercia all believed, for at least a little while, that the world was supported on the back of giant turtle? Yep, crazy beliefs like that couldn't be a coincidence. Extra points to the blog viewer out there who can identify the origins of the poem which inspired this particular turtle/earth cake:

See the turtle of enormous girth!
On his shell he holds the earth.
His thought is slow but always kind;
He holds us all within his mind.
On his back all vows are made;
He sees the truth but mayn't aid.
He loves the land and loves the sea,
And even loves a child like me.

Gotta Love Me, I'm a Sinclair!

2010-04-26T00:03:00.002-07:00

I like Sinclair gas stations with dinosaur statues, if there's a statue station it'll be guaranteed my business. Remember that great Dinosaurs TV show with the Sinclair family? Not the mama! We recently watched Season One on DVD at my in-laws house, and I tell ya', the Hurling Day episode should have become an international classic...humankind just wasn't ready for it yet. And that's the end of our cross country move from Milwaukee to Salt Lake City. Now on we go to some local hijinx, as we whiled away our inter-occupation vacation in Northern Utah. Let me tell ya', we did some pretty weird stuff. How's that for building some anticipation.

007 in Big Springs, Nebraska

2010-04-25T22:52:00.009-07:00

So check out how cool this is, we slept in the room next to a bonafide Aston Martin at the Motel 6 in Big Springs, Nebraska! It looks like Her Majesty's Secret Service was hit by the recession just as hard as we yanks. Big Springs is a great little freeway stop just about at the border of Nebraska and Colorado. The town features a fabulous little Motel 6, distiguished by a 12-foot deep swimming pool which has somehow been overlooked by the people who make sure traveling children stay undrowned. Right next door is the Sam Bass Saloon and Steakhouse, which was somehow overlooked by the people who make sure traveling adults stay unfat. How could someone possibly leave their $200,000 car in that parking lot? Clearly the owner (who I met while checking in, and is as snooty and British as I had hoped for) wasn't watching it too closely as we all gathered around the fabulous machine and took pictures. Even worse, how hard must it be to see all those bug guts get all over your car? So I absolutely had to have a picture of the Aston Martin in front of the $49.99 sign. I required Sara to pose there until the sign changed over, the whole time we were worrying that James Bond would come out with guns blazing. These are the risks that the avid tourist must take. Now we know how those National Geographic alligator photographers feel. While I was checking into the motel I heard the owner of this vehicle having a great conversation with the bumpkin hotel owner:

Hank: That's a nice car ya got there, what is that a Chrysler?

Nigel: Actually that's an Aston Martin.

Hank: Do ya like it?

Nigel: No, I bought a $200,000 car that I wasn't very fond of.

Hank: (after awkward pause) You from 'round here?

Nigel: ...sigh...

The suburban critique of an urban anniversary

2010-04-24T23:10:00.009-07:00

I must take a break in the current travelogue to try my hand at a bit of blog moonlighting. I've decided that I should marry my intense love of food with my intense love of free stuff and become a part time restaurant critic. The catalyst spurring this on was tonight's dinner at Seattle's Palisades to celebrate Sara and I's 5th wedding anniversary. Five years and I still love the daylights out of my little wife. Getting married was so awesome, I'd do it every week if I could get all those relatives to show up so often. Now here we are, 1,826 evenings later, still making great memories together, and never regretting a single moment. Anyhow, on we go to the suburbanite's critique of some urbanite cuisine:

As you drive home after an evening of fine dining at Seattle's Palisades restaurant, you will look down your nose at the diners leaving your once beloved Outback Steakhouse as though they were hogs leaving the trough and grunting their way back to the pen. Yes, even the bloomin' onions and the smothered chickens that you once considered the culmination of culinary quality will seem as mere trifles after the truffles and tarragon of this waterfront upper-class eatery.

After several minutes of harrowing inner arguments I ordered the crab-stuffed mahi mahi, and Sara cut her way through the fillet mignon, which ended up being far more than the cute meat it's name suggests. The mahi mahi was ideal for mehi mehi, with the perfect texture in the slightly fried crust, and the crab stuffing laced with just enough spinach to hold it all together, but not so much to transform the dish from surf to salad. I can't answer to the quality of Sara's food, as she slid the plate away, leaving my invading fork empty. She did, however, say that the mashed potatoes were far better than those served at Applebee's, which is a soaring compliment since we suburbanites consider potatoes "in the neighborhood" the Cadillac of starchy tubers.

I could go on an on for hours about the dessert. When asked which type of creme brulee I'd like I couldn't decide between the Grand Marnier, Chocolate, or Vanilla Bean. I eventually answered, "yes", and got exactly what I requested. I consider myself a connoisseur of burnt cream, and this was certainly a treat to be remembered...dare I say better than that of Paris? At least to this American with an untrained pallet it was. The waiter was very kind and in no way snooty when he found out we don't drink, very unlike the waiters in the mid-west, New York, and Europe. It was touching to see our waiter take the neighboring prom-goers under his wing as he patiently explained to them how to read the menu. The stream flowing through the restaurant, and even the perfectly arranged bathrooms, made the non-dining portion of the evening a delight. I also loved the vibrant view of the city and the marina to my right, the dark ambiance of the lobby to my left, and my beautiful wife of five years ahead of me. Palisades created for us the perfect setting for a romantic evening, providing the perfect return on the risky investment of trying out a new place. Will I ever eat at the Super Mall again? No, at least not this week while that exquisite taste it still on my mouth. I wonder how long I can go without brushing my teeth.

Summer at Winter Quarters

2010-04-19T22:36:00.005-07:00

If we learned anything at all in Sunday School, its that our Mormon ancestors had to endure all kinds of nasty stuff while crossing the plains, most of which was far more tragic than what happens to us during our daily commute downtown and back. The church is really good at commemorating such tragedies through the medium of flowers, visitor centers and statues. The site of Winter Quarters in Omaha, Nebraska is no exception. Even the cat was impressed with the beauty all around. Now that I've actually been to Winter Quarters, I better understand why the Mormons decided to spend the winter there, it's like a tropical paradise. Who'd have known that Nebraska would be the oasis between Nauvoo and Salt Lake City. Don't worry, Randy told me all about how nasty the winter really was there while he was serving his mission in Omaha. Something about ice coming directly at you in the wind. Yuck.

As I was quartering the remnants of my Diet Pepsi in the Visitors Center, I pondered the upgrade of the current facilities from those of 1846. I doubt they had 2-ply back then, not to mention touchless hand soap dispensors. I was super impressed with the giant statue of the mommy and daddy burying their little child. Look how much movement there is in the statue with the wind blowing their clothes, as they look down on the perfectly still body of their child. That is super sad stuff. I guess the wind kept on blowing for these great forefathers of ours regardless of the tragedy at hand. The Winter Quarters temple was dedicated in April of 2001, and it is right next to the cemetery where many Mormon pioneers were buried. The building sorta hides in all the trees, I love it when temples do that, you know, sorta just jump out at you from nowhere when you don't expect it. I'm glad we took the little detour to Winter Quarters, it's great to stop and smell the roses sometimes.

Pictures with Corn

2010-04-18T00:15:00.007-07:00

We were going to use this as a family Christmas card picture, but we forgot to bring the ornaments for the corn stalks. Imagine the irony if we had actually remembered to bring the popcorn chains.

Yeah, so Zoe decided to take a brisk little stroll through the stalks, and the only way I was able to keep up with her was by following her little corn songs. I just followed my ears. Ha! Imagine losing a quiet kid in the acres of corn stalks, you'd never find them. Perhaps this is why the aliens like landing in the corn...those lost kids are so light they slide right on up the tractor beam.

This is Randy tyring to act like a corn stalk. If it weren't for the red shirt he'd blend in like a vegetable chameleon. When does one pull the plug on his or her vegetable chameleon?

More from the Field o' Dreams

2010-04-17T23:39:00.006-07:00

It was so darn hot the day we were in Dyersville. Holy Cow, the cat was panting like a dog, and we were all sweating like sumos in a sauna. I guess we should have asked some locals about their weather in July before we got out of the car...but we didn't want them to be cold as the falling thermometer in December. How did they keep James Earl Jones's face dry while shooting the movie?

Here's Zoe and I running to catch a pop fly. Or maybe we were just trying to get our Iowa driving wiggles out. We seem to be having quite a grand slam of a time anyway. The people that own the joint allow tourists to play on the field whenever they want, unfortunately, we were without bat and ball and Sara wouldn't let us use the cat as either. Note to readers, always keep baseball equipment in your car in case you happen upon a legendary ball park.

Randy and the Cat

2010-03-20T23:21:00.006-07:00

My father-in-law is a pretty manly dude. He drives gigantic trucks through Wyoming, can fix anything, and eats entire triple Baconators without getting sick. He also really likes kitties. He puts them in cute little pink boxes and drives them all around the country to movie sites. I have proof.

I'm not really sure how Randy was elected to haul our cat across the country, but such was the way the dice were rolled. Actually, I'd say he got the better end of the deal since the other choice was to haul Zoe, who spends most of her time during car trips playing with annoying toys and smearing wet crackers all over the seats. When we got to The Field of Dreams movie site Randy was very good to follow Sara's explicit feline security instructions by leashing her up and walking her about. Our fellow roadside tourists did a lot of pointing and staring at the funny man dragging the cat on its leash.

Cats on a leash are pretty hilarious. Like every other cat in the world, Lucy is much better at sleeping than she is at performing any type of physical activity. She tried her hardest for about two minutes to clutch onto the asphalt as Randy pulled her along, but it proved to be far too much work. This is why Lucy was carried from base to base and into the outfield by her push-over humans. Cats are smarter than humans, as proven by their daily schedules.

You really ought to give Iowa a try

2010-03-14T23:03:00.008-07:00

There are a lot of miles between Milwaukee and West Jordan, and every so often you just gotta stop and look at stuff. We've always been big fans of roadside attractions, so making a very short detour through Dyersville, Iowa was a must-do. As you've likely deduced from the sign pictured above, the baseball field from the 1989 film, Field of Dreams, is located in this corny little town.

By corny I mean full of corn. The corn stalks go on and on for miles and I can't help but wonder how all of it could possibly get planted and harvested in a single season, its quite the wonder. Dyersville is one of those little rural towns that girls always call romantic, causing their guys to rack their brains trying to figure out what's so romantic about tractors blocking the road and getting dirt all over your car. I'm beginning to believe that a girl's definition of romance is anything that's not spending another evening sitting on the couch watching reruns of Cheers. Maybe its the corn that is causing the romance. Might this be the answer to the age-old question of why popcorn is served at movie theatres? You get your woman off the couch, take her to a movie, and seal the deal with a big tub o' corn drenched in peanut oil. If I'd been old enough to date in 1989 I would have capitalized on The Field of Dreams, you got Dyersville, lots of corn, and Kevin Costner...it's the perfect blue prints for making out in the balcony. Oh yeah.

For those of you who haven't seen it, The F o' D is an excellent film. To think that we all stood on the very same field that was once trod upon by Kevin Costner, James Earl Jones and Ray Liotta is like a dream come true. Yep, the bleachers from the movie are still there, and the original farm house still stands. There's Sara with the cat in front of said house, and Randy and Diane atop said bleachers. Lucy was a very happy little feline because she thinks Kevin Costner is a dream boat and the best actor ever. Lucy also licks herself.

Packyderms and Palm Trees

2010-03-13T22:31:00.009-08:00

In the days and months before they came out to help us move, Randy and Diane spent many hours playing tetris, in training to be the excellent truck packers that they are. We move cross-country via ABF, and their policy is pretty much $100 per foot of trailer space. Randy was able to keep it to 11 feet exactly, I think this was a result of him having sold his immortal soul in exchange for mad trucking skills. He has won awards, after all. He even tied everything back using ropes and the crazy sailor knots he learned while pirating the high seas. The little dude who came to pick up the truck even told Randy that this was the best packing job he had ever seen. I think I married into the right sort of family. At this very moment, only seven months after our last move, we have begun packing up our stuff again to move in to our new house on the south side of Seattle. I kid you not, we're flying Randy out just to help us move. What more could a man want than to spend two weeks of precious vacation meticulously shoving boxes into a truck. He's a good sport.

This is my little Sara standing in front of the palm tree she and her dad planted in the berm between our house and the church parking lot. We decided we didn't have the space or the wherewithal to transport some of our large house plants across the country, so why not donate them to the berm? I can just imagine the questions raised when the landscapers came later in the week to prune the hedges, only to find that several tropical plants had been immaculately conceived on the church grounds. Perhaps we'll be sainted. I wonder how they fared through the winter...I'm guessing they are no longer with us. Don't worry though, we were able to put several plants in our cars and on the truck, all of which lived, many of which are still living at their grandma's house in Utah. Ain't she a good sport. It was a gift to say thanks for helping us move Diane!

The Brewers Get Schooled

2010-03-09T22:20:00.007-08:00

Here it is, the last blog post from Milwaukee. What better grand finale from the city we called home for nearly three years than one last Brewers game! This game was the night before we closed up the truck and hit the road. Here's Diane enjoying the playground in front of the ball park, Bernie's Dugout. She says the reason she went up there was to play with Zoe, but notice who is nowhere to be seen. She was not able to provide an explanation as to why she got up there by way of climbing up the slide.

Can't say this was the best Brewers game we've ever been to. I think the final run tally was like 14 to 2 in The Pirates' favor. It was a lot of fun to sit next to my mother-in-law who knew a surprisingly large amount about America's favorite past time. Does everyone in the world know more about baseball than me? There are very few things that I consider myself an expert in...maybe Defined Benefit Pension Plans and The Beatles...but that's about it. I may have chosen poorly when it came to fields of expertise. Its not often I'm able to impress guests at dinner parties with my intricate knowledge of the Pension Protection Act. But at least it pays the bills, not many jobs depend on knowing who managed the team that won the 1974 World Series.

Here we are in our favorite seats in the park. Yes, that is the back wall. This is a great place for us to sit because the wall creates a Zoe buffer that makes us only have to worry half as much about which of our unfortunate park peers will be getting Zoe drinks poured into their laps. We also like the back because its cheaper, and I have to save my money to make wagers on the sausage race.

And that's it. We're done with Milwaukee. That was a wild two years and ten months. We learned a lot about ourselves out there. For example, I learned that I like Italian Sausage way more than Bratwurst, but I'd trade a kidney for a spicy chorizo. Sara found out that baseball is her favorite professional sport, and that once Spring training starts, old man winter is finally on his way to his vacation home. Zoe learned how to say, "Waukesha", and that fireflies are much preferred to mosquitos. On to our next long term adventure, but not until we get that truck packed and make the 1,480 mile journey to West Jordan, Utah, our temporary home.

Heeeeeey...get outta my town.

2010-02-28T21:18:00.004-08:00

I took my in-laws on a Sunday stroll along Milwaukee's waterfront to visit the bronzed Fonz. Sara and Zoe and I played a pivotal role in the dedication of this statue, by way of showing up for the dedication. That was a year and a half ago, and Henry Winkler's brazen likeness has yet to grow to the size we were all expecting it to be. Is anyone else a little creeped out by the bronze blue jeans? Sara and I are yet to regret the hours waiting in line to meet the entire cast of Happy Days on that afternoon when the Fonz statue was unsheathed. That was truly the most magical of all Milwaukee moments.

This final walk along the river was sorta strange for us. It was early evening and downtown Milwaukee was completely dead. Not a soul was promenading with us along the banks, as they usually do. Comparing this rural experience with those we had in Chicago twice that same week, was like comparing an evening with Aunt Thelma's Bunco club to the 1 a.m. mosh pit at Death Metal Jam 2010. It seems the candle had reached the end of its wick for our time in Milwaukee and we left downtown for the last time in sort of a quiet state. It wasn't like we needed any sign whatsoever that leaving Milwaukee was the right choice for us, but it really felt like the city had pressed the pause button on us, and the next step was to walk out of the scene while the Fonz gave us the thumbs up. During those first few years in the area, going downtown was a thrill, but this time it was kind of a bummer, which certainly made it easier to head westward for hundreds of miles on I-90. But before we could leave town, we had another day-full of shoving possessions into boxes and cheering for the Brewers.

May I Be Crowned Mormon King of Beers?

2010-02-28T20:08:00.008-08:00

OK, so I'm currently going for the World Record for most consecutive beer-related blog posts by a Mormon. I think this posting, which features pictures taken at the Wisconsin State Fair of 2009, will definitely put me in the running. I've always wondered if the border guards at the Wisconsin state line had a severe inner struggle over whether or not to allow the Budweiser Clydesdales truck into the state. On one hand Budweiser is the evil competing beer comapny from St. Louis, but on the other hand the truck was full of gigantic livestock, which would be the epitome of agricultural eye candy for the fair-going Wisconsin ruralite. In the end the clydesdales were allowed in, and we were all pretty glad because seeing one of those horses is a life changing event. They are incredible, and even moreso for short people like myself, my daughter, and my dear wife and mother-in-law. It was especially great for Randy and Diane because Diane is a life-long horse fan, and Randy was thrilled that they had been hauled in on a personalized semi truck. I thought it was a little ironic that these giant work animals, known world over for hauling huge barrels of beer in fancy carts, didn't have to walk a single mile to get here. I bet that'll come up at the bar later as the Clydsdales share pints of MGD with the Wisconsin horses. Wisconsin horses are very prideful, and are teaming with state pride...they're actually big pompous jerks. I'd say this all stems from the state's claim of being America's Dairyland, which really gets into the heads of the livestock. Don't even get me started about the cows.

Polka Party at the Lakefront

2010-02-25T22:01:00.006-08:00

These are Donny and Amanda, two of our bestest friends from Milwaukee...not that they're actually from Milwaukee, but we met there. This picture was taken at The Lakefront Brewery as we enjoyed one last Friday Night Fish Fry before we headed out of town. That was a way fun night as we wished good bye to these two, and a few of our other friends from work and church. The Lakefront has some really good root beer too, as a matter of fact, this was the RB that Zoe once advertised on behalf of the Lakefront Brewery in The Onion. I think I posted about that a year or so ago.

We like the Lakefront Brewery because they have a gigantic hall wherein on Fridays a live polka band accompanies the fried fish fiesta. Not only that, but they only charge like 4 bucks for the tour and you get a really big glass with admission. Its on the Lakefront tour that a pretty young thing (PYT) among the tourists is officially designated as that evening's Bung Queen, a title sought after by every Milwaukee woman worth her suds. For those of you who need to brush up on their beer vocabulary, the hole in a beer keg is known as the bung hole. I ain't kiddin'. We weren't able to take a whole lot of pictures that night at the Lakefront because we were having waaaaay too much fun talking to our little frineds, and eating fish parts. Also, Zoe is a big polka fan, and demanded a lot of dancing time up by the stage. We really miss Donny and Amanda a lot, good friends like that are a rare thing. We were so blessed to have them out there with us.

Griffins, Glasses and Good Times

2010-02-25T21:14:00.005-08:00

This vicious griffin is the mythological spokes creature for Sprecher Brewery. Touring this brewery became a favorite past time of ours because at the end we actually got to sample their wares. Sprecher Brewery is far more famous for their soda than they are for their beer, especially the Root Beer, which is on tap and generously distributed at the end of the tour. Not to mention this absolutely fabulous soda called Orange Dream, which is good enough to bathe in if it weren't so sticky. I can't even tell you how much I love that stuff.

Here's Sara in front of some sort of beer cart. So are there any other cities out there in the world that have more than a few breweries open for public tours? I submit that there are not. Even though Milwaukee didn't end up being our forever city, I gotta raise a glass to the town for knowing how to have a great time...at least during the warm months of the year. Milwaukee is one of those American cities that most of the country couldn't point out on a map, unless they happened to live within a 200 mile radius. There aren't a huge amount of people there, and the downtown really isn't something many postcard companies are publishing pictures of. Yet over the summer there is always something going on there and people come from all over the world to participate in the local goings on. I'm really proud of Sara and I for getting out and having a great time in the city while we were there, and Sprecher Brewery was a great locale to mix up a great big vat of entertainment. I love my little Sara so much for always being willing and excited to get out there and see our world with me.
And here's Zoe atop a barrell of beer. This is in the little sitting room the brewery tourists are corraled into at the end of the tour to drink stuff. All the adults get four beers each, while the kids and Mormons get all the soda they can pour into their stomachs. These beverages are served in a great little glass you get to take home with you for later use in orange juice consumption. Brewery touring has instilled inside of me a passion for collecting drinking glasses every where I can get 'em. Sara used to not be such a big fan of souvenir shopping with me because if I can't see a use for the item, I ain't buying it. But you'd be surprised how many gift shops sell hurricane glasses for a pretty good price. Now when I'm sitting at home in a deep and dark December, eating my lemon chicken, I can stare at my glass o' water and wish I were vacationing. It's awesome.

The McOlympics

2010-02-20T21:26:00.003-08:00

Now here's the dilemma I'm having about the Olympics right now. I'm experiencing an Olympic Overdose. I think Olympic coverage is the only show that you actually feel morally guilty for not watching. I mean it only happens once every two years, so missing it is like skipping the moon landing. I find myself watching people skiing until midnight thanks to DVR. We're halfway through the Games and I think I've seen enough, but what if I miss something fantastic? My other problem is I feel like such a loser watching those athletes. I'm sitting there on my couch for three hours a night eating ice cream and wearing sweat pants while these beautiful people, who look pretty awesome in spandex, go flying down a mountain at like 80 miles per hour. The worst of it is those few seconds a night where my brain actually says, "Pffff, I could totally do that." I thought the McDonalds in Vancouver, all bedecked as a shrine to physical strength and endurance, is a great symbol of my current thoughts. If only there were a gold medal for Dorito consumption. I'd be the pudgy prince of the podium.

As Zoe was running across the bridge from the parking lot she came across this sign painted on the ground. We are all still confused about what it means. I think we finally decided that the bridge only allows bike riders if they stand atop their bikes. This seems very unsafe to me, but perhaps it was this extreme spirit that landed the Olympics in Vancouver.

Vancouver 2010 minus one week

2010-02-20T20:42:00.008-08:00

Given the Olympic Fever that has clutched the nation and the frozen portions of the world, I figured I should take a little pause in the story of our summer and post some Olympics pictures. We heard the Olympic call (probably written by John Williams) from 120 kilometers north of us starting several weeks before the games began. Farbeit for any travel fan to not visit the site of this international event when it is so close, so we loaded up the car and went international. We weren't foolish enough to go up there during the actual games, instead we scoped the place out the weekend before. Vancouver is a plenty nice place, it's kinda quaint like a European city. Compared to Seattle though, Vancouver is the Freshman who keeps trying to eat his Cowboy Delight at the same cafeteria table as his Senior brother and the LaCrosse team. Its not like we hated the place, but it just wasn't as inviting as the metropolitan areas we've fallen in love with in the recent past. I think the strangest thing about Vancouver is that all the "tall" buildings look exactly alike. I think the problem is that no construction workers can get any unique materials into downtown because there are a total of zero freeways within a 30 kilometer radius of the city center.

I was outta the country during the Salt Lake Olympic Games, but Sara said it was much better organized and the people were way nicer...and there was actual snow. Here's an example of what I mean. After we finally found a parking space (it literally took an hour and a half), and walked across this really cool, really long bridge, we found ourselves just outside the BC Place Stadium. We weren't completely sure if this was where the Opening Ceremonies were going to be because there's a similar building close by. We asked a group of construction workers, a crossing guard and a police officer (the non-royal, non-mounted variety) and each of them said they hadn't the foggiest idea if that was where the opening ceremonies were going to be. Hello? How could you work in front of that building and not know? Weird. Sara tells me that if we had asked this same question to a Salt Laker the week before the 2002 Olympics we would have been given brochures and a guided tour in Swahili if we stopped the right person. Utahns know how to throw a party!

It's Miller Time!

2010-02-17T23:12:00.008-08:00

I apologize for the cliche title on the post, but how could I resist? As a last minute cultural binge we spent our last week in Milwaukee touring three of the local breweries. My favourite part of touring the breweries are the endless jokes about how much the tour-goers like their beer. Being non beer drinkers we often find these jokes super corny, but we're sure that they cause just as much knee slapping among the drunk as those horrible pulpit jokes do among the Mormons. To each their own, you know. The Miller Brewery is a gigantic operation which actually ships out 500,000 cases of beer daily. The number may not look like a lot on paper, but when they show you the room containing the day's half a million cases of beer you can't help but wonder where in the world all that is going. The answer is Chicago. Yep, 40% goes to Milwaukee's big sister to the south.

Yeah, I'm a huge fan of factory tours. Something about seeing all the engineering and planning that is required just to make one single product. What I like the most about watching beer getting made is that not only do you get to see the gigantic machines that get the job done, but there's so much chemistry and history behind the product as well. That picture there is of Zoe and I in one of the beer sampling buildings along the tour. I asked one of the beer ladies if the stained glass window was made of old beer bottles, but she said no. I think she's full of it, because that's got to be a bunch of melted down bottles. I love the drunken friar motif.

Frederick Miller started up his brewery clear back in 1855, and somewhere along the way he and his creamed cronies dug a gigantic cave in the ground and packed it full of beer barrells and huge chunks of ice they hauled in from Lake Michigan. This enabled them to make huge quantities of beer and store it for a super long time so that it could be sold months later. This is the sort of thing that makes me so proud of man-kind. People are able to accomplish such a gigantic endeavor just to make a beverage available to the masses. I think it's pretty cool. Sara points out that the beer cave isn't symmetrical...they must have been sampling their wares while drawing up the blue prints.

Night at the Cloud Gate

2010-02-17T22:18:00.005-08:00

Finally, its the last posting in Chicago! Now we can move the blog back up north to Milwaukee to say our last Auf Wiedersehens to the locals. Might this have been our last visit to our fair Chicago? Not if Sara has anything to do with it. Like I've mentioned before, if you're in the area, you are obligated by international tourist law to take at least 25 pictures of your distorted reflection in the Cloud Gate. I thought these night shots were worth posting. Yeah, we stuck around until pretty late, it is quite rare that you see the giant bean not surrounded by people. Good bye Chicago!

One Last Round in the Crown

2010-02-17T21:15:00.002-08:00

We made the horrible mistake of letting Zoe see the barefoot children playing in The Crown Fountain. Soon thereafter she became a barefoot child playing in the fountain. I was less willing to go naked-footed because I've heard rumours that there may be harmful microbes in many of the fountains of gigantic metropolitan areas. As you can tell by the sunlight levels in these two pictures, Zoe and I spent a lot of time splashing about in the one inch of water. Every ten minutes or so the Chicago resident pictured on the gigantic walls would spit water at us and we'd get as close as we could to the stream without touching our fellow wet members of the public (also covered in microbes). It took a small miracle to get Zoe outta the fountain and into the car, especially after her grandpa got done museum enjoying and started fountain walking with us. Needless to say, it was a sobby and soggy ride home.

Thursday in the Museum without Zoe

2010-02-05T23:51:00.008-08:00

Here's Sara with a painting done by our friend Georges. This painting has always been one of our favorites because we spent the summer living in Levallois - Perret, France, which is the city wherein lies the actual Isle of La Grande Jatte. We took a few walks on the island, and would you believe that the place is full of domesticated honey bees? Yep, bees. Nothing like a jaunt on the Jatte.

We sent Zoe off to paint the town with her grandparents while my wife and I took a Sara-guided tour of The Art Institute of Chicago's brand new modern art wing. When we went through the museum a year ago all the modern stuff was hidden away in a shed somewhere while the new wing was being built, so it was like we were going through a whole different museum this go around. Of course we had to go into the depths of the museum and see our favorite less-Modern paintings while we were there - a task much easierly done sans Zoe. I think it's pretty cool that the new addition includes a back entrance which is accessed by a super long ramp that goes all the way to the middle of Millennium Park. We did miss out on seeing the lions at the front door though.

The views of Millennium Park from inside the new wing of the museum were spectacular. We were looking out at the amphitheatre from the museum when we noticed Zoe clear out there with her grandparents. The picture at the left is the zoomed-in version of the one above...see the red square I drew directly below the amphitheatre up there? Boy was it nice to actually be Zoe-less in a museum for a change. Randy and Diane took their museum shift while we entertained the Zoe later on. Good grief, we tackled Chicago with a fury that day!

Us with Statues of Stuff

2010-02-05T23:15:00.003-08:00

Yeah, so I'm getting really tired of typing about Chicago, but I've still got about 10 cool pictures that I wanted to put on the blog, so its time for less yakety yak and more picture postin'. Here's Randy next to the gigantic facsimile of American Gothic by the river. How could you not take a picture?

Zoe and I came across this red Tyrannosaur down by Crown Fountain. The first animal sound Zoe ever learned was that of a dinosaur, so we've always been drawn to them. I can still remember the beginning of each science class as a third grader hoping and praying that this would be the day we finally began learning about dinosaurs. I don't remember if we ever did. There should be an entire semester of dinosaurology in elementary schools just for boys. Meanwhile, the girls can go to their own class and learn about like princesses or high heels or something. There were no giant pumps in Chicago so Zoe and I stuck with the Trannosaurus. Rarrrr!

This is the Cloud Gate in Millennium Park. She's purty. We've taken loads of pictures of this piece of public art, and they all seem so different. This one merited blog postage because of how awesome the sun hits the buildings in the background.

Chicago's history - for us anyway

2010-02-03T22:51:00.005-08:00

This is Diane next to a bunch of old looking buildings in Chicago. Way out there behind her in the distance is the Wrigley Building, which was built clear back in the 1920s. It was the first sky scraper North of the Chicago River, and the city's first air conditioned office building. I just think it's a pretty neat chunk of rocks, that's all. This city has been alive and running for a century now and it is a thrill to be part of it. Every time I walk down the streets I'm a part of that same unbridled force that's been around since the Capone days...without all the terror. I think the only other city that I've really felt that way is New York. Just by walking down those streets you've been injected with success, its impossible to fail if you can fit in with the hustle bustle of a megalopolis. That's saying a lot for a guy from Cache Valley!

This is Sara next to a bunch of new looking buildings in Chicago. On this day in Chicago we parked right next to the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, as seen behind the Sara. We sorta stuck around in that area for most of the day, and occasionaly walked on down Michigan Avenue to the Trump Tower and back. There's so much to do in that small area that we could have stayed for several days, and probably would have, if Sara had her way. That great big building with the pointy hat marks the spot where we eat pizza. A lot of pizza. Just beyond the Jay Pritzker pavilion is the giant silver bean featured in so many blogs of yesteryear.

My Good Byes to Chi's Pies

2010-02-02T23:28:00.011-08:00

Might this have been the last time we ever eat Chicago style pizza at Giordano's? Not if I have any control over my own destiny. Over the summer we went and saw a movie at The District, and we came across a restraunt called "Sweet Home Chicago" right next to the theatre. I went in and talked to the owner, and he claimed to make pizza which is the spitting image of the stuffed version we fell in love with while in Chicago. You know, they really shouldn't use the word "spit" when describing their menu items. We never got around to testing the restraunt owner's claim while in the Salt Lake area, but Randy and Diane have had a share of the fare there, and say these proxy pies could potentially pacify our pizza poorness. I'd have to eat it to believe it though. Fact is, if I'm not waddling outta that restraunt so full that I'm about to puke up liquid heaven, than I'm never going back.

Really though, come on, they certainly could have come up with a more creative name than "Sweet Home Chicago". I've been thinking about this more than I probably should, and I came up with a better one - Chi Pie. Locals often call Chicago "Chi Town" (at least the ones in the movies do), with "Chi" pronounced like "shy". The assonance in the pronunciation would be required for admittance, this way we could keep out the non-Chicago riff raff. We could even take it further and just spell the name using the two Greek letters Chi and Pi...you math nerds know the ones I'm talking about...the big fancy 'X' from the Chi distribution, and the pi that math posers try to work into conversations to make themselves feel smart. That is, if the greek letter chi weren't pronounced like "kai". But I digress. I like pizza, and if I weren't such a wuss I'd seriously consider owning my own pizza joint, just so I could say I own my own pizza joint.

And speaking of Zoe next to a giant beer sign, here's a funny story. Sara and Zoe and my dad and I took a trip to St. George over the summer to visit relatives and recreate. Yes, we recreate by visiting cemeteries and climbing on rocks, but it was certainly a change in scenery. Anyhow, dad took us to dinner one night and Zoe requested Pepsi. Now before you call Child Services, be it known that Zoe refers to all bubbly beverages as Pepsi. Dad thought he'd help Zoe to ask for more child friendly beverages, so while Sara and I were away from the table he taught her to say "Root Beer". Dad's plan backfired as Zoe now refers to soda as "beer". Thanks Dad. I guess since she was born in Wisconsin, this is not an unexpected addition to her toddler vernacular.

A little shout out to Khalifa

2010-01-31T23:01:00.006-08:00

I came across this lego model of the Burj Khalifa (formerly Burj Dubai), which is by far the neatest building ever built by mankind. Surely I've gone on and on about this Tower of Babel in the past, but I figured this picture of me with the lego interpretation thereof would be a good venue to once again state my extreme desire to visit the United Arab Emirates. It doesn't have to be a long trip, all I really have to do is see the Burj Khalifa, the Burj Al Arab (the world's only 6 star hotel), and ski down the indoor desert snow mountain. What would that take, like a day? I guess I better learn how to indoor ski first.

Why are my favorite skyscrapers getting their names changed? I'm never going to be able to call the Sears Tower the Willis Tower, but since my fabulous little Burj was given its name at birth rather than as an adult skyscraper, I can get used to less Dubai and more Khalifa. And speaking of the Sears Tower, even though there are several Asian buildings taller than her, she still contains the world's tallest inhabited floor, at 442 meters up. That is, until the Burj Khalifa was completed in October of 2009, which was topped out at a few meters short of double the height of the Sears Tower, at 828 meters. Those of you who have seen the Sears Tower, just imagine another Sears Tower on top of it, and there's your Burj Khalifa! How could you not want to head out to the Middle East just to see it? The Burj Khalifa has blown every height record completely out of the water, and will likely hold that title for at least a decade, although there's a lot of talk out there about upcoming projects. Hail to Khalifa!

United We Are Strong

2010-01-31T22:50:00.003-08:00

Sara and I thought that these posters were quite boss. The walls up and down the hallway and stairs that lead into the lair of the U-505 were bedecked with this United Nations propoganda, and we loved it! I thought it was cool that this World War II slogan is so similar to the post September 11th battle cry of United We Stand. I was out of the country at that time, but I've heard many stories of that slogan being posted all over the country. I can only imagine that the patriotism of the WWII era was even greater. I'm glad to have not been around at that time, and I think its great that the same feeling can be had in America's museums.

You've got a what in the basement?

2010-01-31T19:25:00.007-08:00

As if gigantic trains and airplanes weren't enough, down in the basement of Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry there lurks an actual German U boat. I imagine it's kept down there because everyone knows that submarines are much happier below the ground than they are above it. U-505 was successfully captured on June 4th, 1944 by the United States Navy. We had heard that there was a submarine at this museum, but I had no idea it would be so cool to see the thing. It was huge...I mean super huge...huge enough that its like impossible to get the right kind of picture of it without one of those fancy wide-eyed cameras. Not to mention, they have the room really dark (also to make the submarine feel more at home, as I imagine the depths of the ocean are quite dark), so that hopeful photographers have to sit there and debate whether to use the night settings or not. I decided to forget the camera and just enjoy the submarine.

Before she was captured by the Americans, U-505 was a pretty nasty little beast. She sunk 3 American ships, 2 British, 1 Norwegian, 1 Dutch and a Columbian schooner called Roamar. The story of how U-505 was actually captured got kinda confusing to me because there were all these ships and airplanes doing all kinds of weird-o maneuvers and I sorta zoned out. Suffice it to say that towards the end of the war the Americans were able to cause enough damage to get the Germans to abandon ship , but not so much damage that they sunk the submarine. The codebooks and equipment removed from the boat proved very useful in interpreting the German signals for the rest of the war.

In an effort to keep the capture a secret from the Nazis, the Americans docked U-505 at a Naval base in Bermuda and renamed her the USS Nemo. Also, to keep the Germans from finding Nemo the US soldiers declared all 59 of the crew members dead, where in actuality, 58 of them were in Louisiana under strict guard (the other guy actually did die during the capture). The family of the crewmen were told that they had been killed and funerals were held. Can you imagine the reactions of the family when their U-505 husbands and sons showed up at their doors in 1947 having finally been released by the US Govenrment. I wonder if any of them came home to a wife with a new husband?

Right after the war, the US Navy decided to use U-505 as target practice, but the brother of the Admiral who made such decisions convinced his brother to donate it to the newly established Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. After 8 years of fund raising, the people of Chicago came up with $250,000 to fund the towing and installation of the submarine in the front yard of the museum. There it stood, out in the snow, from 1954 to 2004 when the museum people noticed that the hull was getting all messed up by the elements. That's when it was moved into a specially designed room in the basement of the museum. A specially designed gigantic room, that is. I thought it interesting to note that after U-505 was moved inside, the museum curators thought it prudent to refurbish the innards of the sub so it would look brand new. This they did by actually contracting the original German designers of the submarine to do the work. We would have looked inside the boat, but we got there as the last sold-out tour was going through. Seeing an actual German U-boat was a very cool experience. Chicago is such a great town.

More from the Science Museum

2010-01-31T14:05:00.007-08:00

Here's the Randy sitting in the jet turbine of a Boeing 727. That's a picture that not many people have, that is, except for the thousands of people that have gone to this museum. In the same room as the model train track they have a whole load of aircraft adangle from the ceiling. How does one dangle a Boeing 727 from a ceiling? That's 169,000 pounds. Plus they had to account for the weight of all the museum goers walking in there to see all the hands-on flight information booths inside the aircraft. Here's another little clue that our move to the west was a good idea, Boeings are made in Seattle. Cue Twilight Zone music now. It was interesting to see how much aircrafts have changed in the last century. From next to the 727 you can see the replica of the Wright Brothers' plane (we saw the real one in Washington DC a few years back), and several other planes across the room. Then you walk into the 727, which was built sometime between 1963 and 1984, and you realize that nothing has really changed in passenger airlines since then. Yeah, maybe the upholstery on the flotation device seats has become less blue, but it really is the same ride in brand new planes. Oh wait, let me take that back, the price of sitting in one of those non-blue seats has changed a lot...on to the next picture!

Now here's that same Randy standing beside a World War II Sturzkampfflugzeug (Stuka), which is one of only two left intact in the entire world (the other one is in London). These were crazy little dive bombers that had rear gunners and sirens that would wail as they made their attack. That would be frightening. I wonder if the reason the Germans lost the war is that it took them so long to say the long names of their aircraft that they didn't have the time to shout "Fire!" before it was too late. The little airplane beside which Randy is looking quite serious was captured in Libya in 1941. These little guys actually had automatic air brakes in them so that if the pilot blacked out from the g-force while diving, the plane would automatically pull up. Neato.

The last picture shows Randy, Sara and Zoe entering passenger train number 999 of the Empire State Express (at least part of it), whose inaugural trip took Syracuse New Yorkers to the Chicago World's Fair in May of 1893. This little train was quite a big deal, as it was once considered the fasted vehicle in the world, hitting a top speed of 112.5 mph. Eventually diesel powered trains came around rendering 999 obsolete. After spending 10 years doing switch car work in New York, it was donated to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, and eventually boarded by my family. I really like big metal objects that move really quick. Mankind is a pretty amazing kind.

Heavens to Betsy, Where's the Dern Exit?

2010-01-25T22:32:00.003-08:00

I'm not sure which of us took this picture, but it couldn't be any better. Are these people actually waiting to catch this train? Have they been waiting there since their clothes were in style? Maybe they came in with the train and are still trying to find their way out of the museum.

1,425 feet from Chicago to Seattle

2010-01-24T23:47:00.005-08:00

Believe it or not, there was more than just pop culture at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry...a lot more. I just love a great museum like this, all full of stuff you never knew you always wanted to see. There's one gigantic room devoted strictly to land and air transportation, and it's chuck full of actual airplanes, cars and trains. Leave it to Chicago to do this in a big way. In the center of the room there's a 3,500 square foot model train track, on which 34 trains speed their way through and above the busy streets of downtown Chicago, and out across the open plains to the west. Check out how neat those model skyscrapers are in the Chicago cityscape behind Sara and Zoe! That's a good representation of how tall the Sears Tower actually is (taller than Sara).

I could have spent a lot more time looking through the buildings into the streets of Faux Chicago. Model train track building is probably the job that I should have aspired for in college. Strangely, that was never a choice in those career choice computer programs. We couldn't spend too much time looking at our mini-Chicago though, because we had several hundred down-to-scale miles of farms to look at before we got out to the West Coast. Why are model trains so cool? It totally reminds me of that great episode of the King of Queens where Doug's dad lets him drive his train at the model train competition, and Doug ends up catching the entire track on fire.

So we followed the trains all through the Great Plains and around the Rocky Mountains, and what should we come upon but a gigantic model of Seattle! What a strange coincidence that I had just gotten the confirmation phone call that we'd be moving to Seattle, and there in front of us was the trail from Chicago to Seattle. I can't speak for Sara, but I definitely feel that this was an omen. There was our future all laid out in front of us, and how could we question such a fabulous miniature version of the real thing? This was such a great day for us. Chicago has provided many a magical moment in our recent past, I very much miss that place.

The Harry Potter Exhibition

2010-01-23T23:49:00.011-08:00

Don't tell the guys, but I'm a Harry Potter fan. I was one of those people that was all anti-Potter until I finally saw the first three movies and became a fan. I guess I'm out of the closet now. My family and I aren't fanatics, but we've all read the books and seen the movies. Several months ago we heard that Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry would host a Harry Potter Exhibition during the summer of 2009, and we figured, "why not?" Ok, well some of us got really excited and bought tickets immediately, while others figured it'd be better than hefting boxes into a moving truck.

The exhibit was quite cool though, they had pretty much every costume and prop from the movies all lined up as though one was walking through Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Cameras were a big no-no, except for next to the Weasley's flying Ford Anglia, which was on display in the lobby. The camera prohibition was probably a good thing because I would have taken a lot of pictures of all kinds of stuff, and not been able to enjoy the exhibit quite as much. Admittedly though, I would have been much more impressed if they had acquired the actual clothes worn by the original wizards, rather than just the costumes from the movies. Witnessing this exhibit would definitely have been a life changing event for any out of control Harry Potter freak. I thought it was crazy awesome how much work and minute detail was put forth just to make a movie. Cool stuff.

My mind was a little out in the woods by itself during that museum trip because just as we were walking into the building I got a phone call from my now current boss out here in Seattle. He was calling to offer me the job! Wahoo! I was pretty certain I'd get this job, given how well the interview went, but one can never be completely sure. As we were walking from wizard wand to witch wardrobe all I could think about was the relief that I had a job to go to in October. There I was in my favorite city, during my favorite month, with my favorite people, knowing that I had three solid months of not having to work (pretty much 12 weeks of vacation), and we were finally getting out of Milwaukee. Sara and I never really loved it out there, I think we spent a lot of time trying to convince ourselves that we did, and making the most out of it, but we were always looking for a way to get closer to home and further from Old Man Winter (he's a big fat jerk). After three years of the dark freeze, I was on cloud nine, and ready for a move into a much brighter future, which it most certainly has become.

My Kind a Town

2010-01-23T23:23:00.007-08:00

Thirty Seven. I have 37 blog-destined pictures on my computer from this single day in Chicago. You gotta know you're in a great city when you take that many pictures of it and it's like your 12th trip there. This is why we like Seattle so much, every time we go for a little jaunt downtown we come home with a camera full of interesting pictures. I'm really anxious to start posting all the cool places we've been in Seattle over the last three months, but these Chicago photos are burning a hole in my cyber pocket. Plus, we gotta do this little travelogue (travelblogue) in chronological order, so you people will just have to be patient!

You must understand that we love Chicago like a zombie loves Einstein's brain. Our last day in Chicago we spent many minutes staring into the cityscape bidding farewell to the buildings that we may not see again for a long while. Then we had to snap out of it and go find Zoe again because she doesn't stay in any single place for longer than two seconds. No actually, we never really lost her, she's easy to find because she shrieks with joy so much while in Chicago. Yikes, there I go agin, maybe if I just shut my yap and started posting pictures I'd get it done. So off we go.

Mars Cheese Castle

2010-01-23T22:59:00.003-08:00

Off we went for Chicago Trip With the In-Laws 2009 Day II. Not many miles before the Wisconsin - Illinois border is a gigantic building with an equally gigantic sign visible for miles on the freeway; The Mars Cheese Castle. We took a little stop to view the wonders of this mysterious roadside cheeserie and found that the selection therein was both varied and grandiose. It was a dairy paradise bedecked with all the Wisconsin souvenirs that the good people of China have ever made. We got ourselves a miniature hand-painted plastic beer glass on a chain which we festively displayed on our Christmas tree this year. Ah, the memories.
Zoe was struggling to be happy while we cheese shopped, but was pacified when a Cheese Martian gave her this lovely yellow balloon. The balloon made a world of difference, which was not a surprise because look at it! Its a yellow balloon with uddered cows dancing under the word "Wisconsin". Who ever said happy cows live in California? We liked the gigantic Mars Cheese Castle, it was definitely worth the stop.

Slow Down For the Slow

2010-01-21T23:11:00.002-08:00

Wouldn't it be cool to walk down the street and come across a crossing sign with your name on it? I can already picture the yellow diamond with a portly silhouette walking between two lines and a sign below that reads "Kason".

Urban Sun Bathing - Chicago style

2010-01-18T22:53:00.009-08:00

Here's Randy having a grand ol' time at the Chicago beach. My in-laws are crazy beach nuts and they also go ga ga for Chicago, so this was like Shangrila for them. Afterwards we stuffed them full of Giordano's pizza, rendering them very happy campers. This is a good thing because we had a lot more packing to do back in the real world, and we wanted to keep their spirits high. Check out that kick-trash palm tree! I wonder how it fares during the Windy City Winters.
Zoe really likes to sit in mud. She was confused that the standard ingredients of water and dirt didn't combine at the beach to create her favorite earthen seat. Instead she got sand in every part of her body from the knees down. It took all the strength in me to keep her from walking out into the freshwater sea. We tried our darndest to keep her pants clean because we had a lot more driving home to do that day, and no one likes car sitting with pants full o' sand. We failed. I wonder if I would have gotten in the water had I brought my swimsuit. Probably not. One of my favorite things about a beach is looking for strange sea creatures. There was no such thing in Chicago, unless you include the tourists. Honestly, I'd be a bit afraid of what I'd find if I were to do a thorough search of the coast, there's a lot of soggy diaper potential along a 28 mile Great Lake stretch. What a beautiful day it was.
That was it for this Chicago trip, but don't you worry, we all came back the very next day. We were all pretty tired after all our stops on the way down to Chicago, so it was back up North for us. Tune in next time for some more Illinois fun.

Chicago Beach Squatters

2010-01-17T23:14:00.011-08:00

Yes, you're about to be force fed another several postings of our antics in Chicago. We've always said that our favorite part about Milwaukee is Chicago, and perhaps these pictures will prove it. Randy and Diane have been as seduced by the Windy City as we have, and during their summer trips to the midwest, we usually take two drives down there to sitesee the skyscrapers and snarf the pizza. During this particular trip we experienced a new side of Chicago, that of the beach resort.

I didn't believe it at first either, but Chicago actually boasts the "most swimmable" metropolitan shoreline in the US (whatever that means). I haven't the foggiest idea how this could be the case, and surely anyone that has been to South Beach would be just as skeptical. Perhaps it is considered the most swimmable because the tourists that are pushed into Lake Michigan by their mischevious family and friends swim like crazy to get the heck outta there . There must have been hundreds of people prancing around in the tide, and much to our surprise, very few of them were developing strange rashes or legions on their bodies from the polluted water. Sara and I have heard plenty of news stories in Milwaukee which lead us to believe that every time we flush our toilet the lake gets a few gallons deeper. Apparently that is not the case in the Chicago portion of our country's Northern Shore. Perhaps I'm just a little paranoid that I'd get pulled under by a cement shoe wearing ex-mafia man of bygone times.

Big city people get big ideas that lead to big projects (especially if there's a big budget). As I was looking up information about the beahes of Chicago I happened upon one of those huge projects that the modern metropolitanite is most likely oblivious to as he or she enjoys a beach day in the shadow of the world's tallest buildings. Like so many other Chicago stories, it all starts with the great fire of 1871. 15 years later people were still trying to dig out, and most of the excess debris was getting dumped into the lake. A dude named George Streeter decided to bank in on this and let his river boat run ashore 451 feet off the shore and payed rubble dumpers to do so next to his boat. Since the boat belonged to him he had legal rights to squat on the island that was accumulating below it, and before too long he had enough land to establish the "United States District of Lake Michigan", which was not subject to any laws of Chicago or Illinois. Eventually his island became a peninsula, and Streeter sold many deeds to people of low repute for a lot of cash. To make a long story short, for 32 years he fought against the local policemen and politicians to keep his ill-gotten land (which he cleverly called Streeterville) through use of shotguns and boiling water. I can imagine how relieved the policemen (I picture them being Irish) were that the water was purified before it became a deadly weapon.

George Streeter's land remained in his family until 1928, when it was finally ruled to be part of the city of Chicago. Of course by that time it had become a substantial chunk of urban real estate, valued at over $300,000. You'll never guess what stands on top of the exact spot where George Streeter's boat was beached for those 42 years...Chicago's fourth tallest building, The John Hancock Center! That's the double spired one behind Sara in this picture, you know, the one that Clark Griswold works in. I just love to think that all those gigantic buildings are standing on the land dumped there after the fire, and the only reason it was put there was because of one completely deranged guy. This is very similar to the history of Manhattan, don't forget that the entire United Nations complex in Eastern Manhattan is sitting on top of the land that was excavated when building the World Trade Center and dumped into the East River.

The First McDonalds - Krok Style, Boom Like That!

2010-01-17T00:07:00.006-08:00

The city of Des Plaines, Illinois decided to nickname themselves "The City of Destiny". This is far better than their previous slogan of "A Great Place to Stop and Get Gas On Your Way to O'Hare". The current nickname was aptly chosen as it was from this Chicago suburb that Ray Kroc launched a little "restaurant" called McDonald's. We aren't really the type that eat at McDonald's very often, though we occasionally enjoy an Angus Third Pounder, or an Egg McMuffin. Ever since I found that long curly red clown hair in my Big Mac I've been trying to stay away. We do, however, appreciate American culture, and what better way is there to celebrate what's made our country the juggernaut it is today than by eating at the spawning pool that brought to light one of its most greasy stereotypes.

Now here's a bit of fast food history for you. The sign under which I'm enjoying a delicious frozen gelatinous substance on a cone claims that at this locale was born the national chain of McDonald's. This is not to say that McDonald's itself actually began there, rather, Ray Kroc's national chain of restaurants called McDonald's was. The restaurant in Des Plaines is technically the 9th McDonald's, the first one having been established by Dick and Mac McDonald is in San Bernardino, California. Dick and Mac were the inventors of fast food as well as the idea of franchising, and they had successfully opened eight McDonald's restaurants between 1940 and 1954. Enter: Ray Kroc, milkshake machine repairman. Ray saw the potential in the McDonald brothers' idea, made a handshake deal with them, and built his first store here in Des Plaines. The store where we dined was at the company's like 90 billionth location, which is across the street from the original store number 9...or is it number 1? I guess that depends on if you're eating at McDonald's or Kroc's?

So if any of you blog readers are anything like Sara and I, the first thing that comes to your mind is, "Next time we're in San Bernardino, we absolutely must go and see Dick and Mac's original store!" That'd be a waste of time because she's been demolished and turned into the corporate headquarters of America's second favorite fast food chain, Juan Pollo (who dat?). We'd have to go to Downey, California to see the oldest operating McDonald's, which was Dick and Mac's fourth store. I love the original sign in Des Plaines, which has touts the proud claim of their one millionth customer. Currently, McDonald's serves 47 million people daily. In 1984 the company had Dick McDonald himself flip their ceremonial 50 billionth burger. Believe it or not, there are actually more Subway sandwich joints out there than there are McDonald'ses. And the rich get richer.

Baha'u'llah, The Bab and The Ba'hais

2010-01-12T23:05:00.012-08:00

The Ba'hai faith embraces the teachings of the prophets from various other denomintions, including Abraham, Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, and their modern prophet, Baha'u'llah. If you zoom in on the top picture there, you'll notice the intricate etchings in the top of the pillar that I'm holding up. Some of those etchings are the common symbols of the world's many religions. We had to toss Sara up very high in order for her to snap this picture. That's Lake Michigan up there, making this land beachfront property. Notice the nine pools around the building, which has nine arches and nine main doors. I'd reckon there's some sort of religious meaning behind the number nine. Or maybe that's just how things looked the prettiest. Strange how such an enormous building gets lost in the trees in the Midwest. I bet it looks really cool in the snow.

This is a picture we ripped off the internet of the interior of the dome (no pictures allowed inside). I really like that they keep the interior so bright, unlike many international churches of similar grandeur. The detail in the ceiling is fascinating, and the symbol in the middle represents the Greatest Name. Islamic people believe there are 99 names for God, and some Islamic sects, including the Ba'hai, believe in a 100th name for God which is greater than all, and there it is. The interior of that building was so peaceful and bright, I didn't want to leave.

There are only two existing pictures of Baha'u'llah. Ba'hais believe it sacreligious to show pictures of him in public places, or display his image in their homes. I guess if you'd really like to see what he looks like, the shameless and wonderful people of Wikipedia have both pictures. He lived in the latter half of the 19th century in what we now call Iran and Iraq. He became prominent for spreading the word of the Bab, a guy who showed up around Persia in 1844 claiming to be the Islamic messiah. After that he pretty much walked all around Iraq, spent many years in prison and preached like crazy. He claims to be the Messiah of all religions, which is a pretty big deal, but at least he did it in a peaceful way. The Ba'hai's seem to be carrying on his tradition; they are so quiet and peaceful. They don't even accept contributions unless you're a member of the faith. So there's your religious lesson of the day. I'm so glad that the churches of the world have given us all so many amazing buildings!

The Ba'hai House of Worship - Illinois

2010-01-11T23:59:00.006-08:00

The Ba'hai House of Worship is one of those amazing places in our own backyard that a lot of the locals don't even know about. This is the prettiest building in the entire state, and according to the state department of tourism, one of the Seven Wonders of Illinois (ranked only slightly below Coach Ditka). That's a fairly big claim for a state chuck full of the world's best sky scrapers.

If I were a better person I would take the time to read the entire wikipedia article about the Ba'hai faith, but I just don't have the patience right now. There are actually quite a few Ba'hais out there, over 6 million actually, and they aren't necessarily all in the Middle East. As a matter of fact, they've established a house of worship on each continent, and the North American temple happens to be in Willmette, Illinois, so of course we went to see it. Actually, does Panama City count as North America? I guess we'll call that Central America. Anyhow, so the people there were super neat, and I could really feel that great spirit that is present in religious buildings. You can always tell when a religious group is in it for the right reason by how the tourists act while visiting their houses of worship. People touched by the spirit just feel wrong running about and shouting like tourist ninnies regardless of weather they belong to the faith or not.

This temple is by far the coolest looking of all the Ba'hai houses of worship, although the one in New Delhi ain't so bad. Its a good 138 feet tall, being the tallest of all Ba'hai buildings, and is surrounded by the most beautiful gardens. The building took 32 years to build, mostly because of the lulls during World War II and the Great Depression, and the fact that it is massive and incredible. I'll have to move on to the next posting to further prove how awesome this building is. Anyone who has lived in the Chicago area and has never stood at the bottom of the stairs of the Ba'hai temple should repent and make a pilgrimage.

Zoo Hijinks with Randy III

2010-01-11T23:04:00.006-08:00

So I don't know where it came from, but I've always had this strange fascination with birds. I'm guessing it's genesis was all those trips I made to Logan's Willow Park when I was a tiny little fledgling. I remember my dad and I going there with an entire loaf of bread, wadding up pieces into little balls and throwing them at, I mean to, the birds. There's just something cool about how birds move and get around, and they all look like puppets. I really like puppets. Also, there was a period of time where my mom raised love birds to sell into bird slavery. I really liked those fat little guys, and I sometimes wish they were still around, but I think my parents had to get rid of them because they ran out of newspapers.

When Randy and Diane were visiting, The Milwaukee County Zoo sponsored a "Birds of Australia" exhibit in which zoo goers could shove little Popsicle sticks with millet glued to them into the faces of aviary, hoping to forge a bond between the humans and the birds. It worked for all of us, except Zoe who was too busy trying to play with the stuffed creatures sold in the exhibition hall to notice the hundreds of birds flying about the room. I was a little bit disappointed that I wasn't able to feed any stereotypical Australian birds like Kookaburra and Emus. I don't know a whole lot about these birds from down under, but given that they are from Australia they could probably kill me, so I'm glad they were left out of the millet mall.

There's this awesome bird house at the Zoo that I really liked going to whenever we visited. My dear little wife, however, has some sort of strange bird phobia, so she sent my brave daughter and I into the wild blue yonder to commune with our fine feathered friends all alone. The grand finale of the bird house was my favouritest bird in the whole wide world, the Great Hornbill. Of all the birds ever created, this one is the puppetiest, with its fat long neck, and its Toucan Sam beak. It just sits there all day looking super regal, occasionally opening its mouth and squawking, as though it ran the whole Zoo. Sometimes I think the gigantic land mammals get all the attention.

Zoo Hijinks with Randy II

2010-01-11T00:19:00.005-08:00

I learned something new about Randy; he always keeps a red bandana in his pocket. Well at least he does when he's being forced by his son-in-law to load boxes full of old math books into a hot truck on a sunny summer day. This bandana came to great use while at the zoo riding on the train, where he spontaneously metamorphosised from Normal Randy: to Bank Robber Randy: and then finally into Street Thug Randy:How could I not put these pictures on the blog? I just get a big kick out of this guy. I don't think I've ever met somebody who takes better advantage of the summer than Randy does. He'll wear shorts all year as if having a sit in against heat discrimination during the winter time. I just realized that on the other side of the calendar, my own dad is the best Christmas celebrator I've ever met. So my wife and I get the best of paternity all year long. I wonder if a similar polarity exists between my mother and mother-in-law? I know my mom enjoys a good Easter egg hunt, but does Diane go ga ga for pumpkin carving? We'll have to explore this at the next family reunion.

Zoo Hijinks with Randy I

2010-01-10T23:53:00.004-08:00

The Milwaukee County Zoo is a whole load of fun, and for Zoe it becomes an amusement park when Randy is around. He and Diane came out to enjoy our last week of the Midwest with us. When I wasn't standing over them with a whip while they were standing over boxes with bubble wrap, we all went to our favorite Milwaukee sites to bid farewell and have some fun. Randy's a pretty hip grandpa who is very good at turning leisurely stroller rides into Six Flags on four wheels. In her two year-old mind Zoe has often likened me to a Grand Canyon mule as I slowly lumber along up and down the forested hills of the county Zoo. On the other hand, Grandpa Randy runs up and down the road zig-zagging like crazy, popping wheelies, making scary noises, and actually lifting up the entire stroller so Zoe can see the big fat bears loafing about in their hammocks...not unlike her father. This is no easy task since Randy has to lean down about ten feet in order to grasp onto the stroller handles. Here he is subjecting her to some sort of zoological water torture.

I've got a load of pictures of this Zoo trip, so maybe I shouldn't type so much. Whenever we go places with Randy and Diane we end up taking more pictures than the paparazzi at a celebrity purse dog convention. We've got our camera, Diane has hers, and Randy has the camera he won from work...the same camera that has snapped many a roadside picture of OREO cows and freeway sunsets. We all snap pictures, then after our photogenic shenanigans have come to an end I have three times the pictures to select from for blog fodder. How will I ever find enough text to give all the blog-worthy pictures from my shutter bug in-laws a comfy little house to live in? I'm sure I'll manage, I'm a pretty chatty fella. Here's Zoe with her grandpa on the resident Milwaukee County Zoo dromedary, Omar. Omar has frequented our film over and over again. Let's face it, he's a very photogenic camel.

So Long Waukesha

2010-01-10T00:11:00.006-08:00

My last day of work in Milwaukee was July 23rd. It was a great part of the year to be gainfully unemployed, and we used our time off to its fullest. I already had another job lined up in Seattle, so it really ended up being a 3 month partially paid vacation. Wahoo! Sara and I spent most of our free time putting all of our stuff into boxes and taping them shut, hoping that the contents would get to their final destination in as many pieces as they began with. Of course, there was no way on Earth I could keep Sara inside packing during the 2 beautiful months of Wisconsin summer, so we grabbed the camera and set out looking for some final photos to remember the fond moments of our Midwest sojourn.

Many of our good times were in our county's seat: Waukesha. If you'll recall from a former posting, Les Paul is from this fine town, as are a bunch of people who live with a lot of strange lawn statuary on diagonally oriented streets. Zoe was born in Waukesha, and she can say the name of her birth town, which took a lot of practice. Is it just me, or is that a lot of signs on that sign? Also, here's a picture of me with a fox statue on a bridge over the Fox River in a city whose name means "fox" in Algonquin. Has anyone ever seen a fox in the wild? I think they live strictly in movies and statues. I'm so surprised that none of the locals have stolen this statue for their lawns. On this particular weekend Randy and Diane were on their way to spend our last few days in Wisconsin with us. This is code for "help us move all our boxes". By some strange coincidence the vacation they planned months in advance ended up being the same week we moved. Lucky them. I love those few days when they are on the road en route to visit us, its fun to call and see where they're at (usually Nebraska).

Wellants!

2010-01-05T21:30:00.007-08:00

The Great Circus Parade included a whole herd of elephants which had been specially trained to withstand the weight of six to eight Americans. Three of those six to eight were Zoe, Sara and I. Zoe's been an elephant fan for all of her two years, and she just about exploded with excitement when she realized that the line we'd been standing in for many minutes was to actually sit on top of an elephant.

When it was my turn to get on the elephant with Zoe, the weird circus dude let me sit pretty much on top of his or her head (the elephant's head, not the weird circus dude's). It was pretty much the coolest thing ever because when the elephant flapped its ears to cool off, the ears scraped across my legs. I've never had gigantic ears flap across my legs before, and it was pretty neat. The elephant really liked it when I pet its head and ruffled its hair. It did not enjoy the Dutch rubs.

Sara wanted a chance to ride with Zoe too, so I passed the elephant jockey reigns to her. Ever since Zoe was a little glow worm we've been working as hard as we can to influence her favorite animal decision into the pachyderm arena. Imagine our relief when one of her first words was "wellant", which we have correctly interpreted to mean "elephant". Since then we've all become intense wellant fans, and hope to someday have a wellant ranch in our backyard. I'm sure we'll be able to succesfully wrangle the world's largest land mammal because the weird circus dude taught a secret wellant fact: Some are left-trunked and some are right-trunked. Let the records show that Sara, Zoe and Kason are, and forever will be, HUGE wellant fans.